Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

The Hope of Healing Pt.1

We're going to be looking at a subject that we haven't really spent time on for-- don't know, I can't really think of the last time we actually did some teaching on the doctrine of divine healing. We are going to be talking about the hope of healing. When I talk about hope, of course, we're having to go back and remember some of the studies we've done in years past. We're not talking about, "I hope this thing works out in our traditional thought process of just a desire, a longing for," but the Scripture, when we talk about hope and the Greek makes it very clear, your memory tells you it's called, what? Favorable expectation. It's an expecting. It's a hope that isn't just wondering, it's expecting at any moment for the promise of God to manifest.

Hope is what faith causes to materialize. Faith is the substance of things, what? Faith gives substance to, or causes to materialize what we're favorably expecting based upon the promises of God. Hope comes from the Word of God, from the promises of God. So, as we begin to look at this aspect, the doctrine of divine healing, let's approach it in a way that I think will help all of us in light of the study that we've done on sovereignty. What I'm saying is--and this is where many of the teachings that some have heard in years past that we would relate to as the faith teachers and many of them. They believe that they can force God into doing things based upon promises, faith, reciting, building up the inner man, and the ability to create this force called faith.

Now, I'm headed toward Kenneth Copeland, aren't I? "Object." The misconception is that faith is a force that comes from the promises of God rather than the person of God, and it is not. Faith comes from the person of God. God is the object of our faith; faith being trust, assurance, reliance. That's what faith is: a trust in, reliance upon, an assurance of believing that what He has promised He is able to perform. Who against hope believed in hope, the father of our faith, that he might obtain the promise of God when there was no natural hope. He got his hope from the Word of God, the promises of God. "You're going to bear a son and Abraham now being old..." when all natural ability was gone. You see, as long as Abraham still had some life in him and Sarah was the problem, there was that expectation. We all know the problem how they got with Hagar and the Ishmael process and all of that. "But, now him being dead in his own body..." hoping against hope and God brought about the miracle.

So that's really how faith works. Faith works outside of our natural abilities. Hope believes what natural man says is not probable, or in many cases impossible. So, when it comes to healing we have to start based upon that teaching that we did not too long ago on the fact that God is sovereign. Now, remember, I'm going to make a statement here and it's probably going to cause some of you, "Well, I don't know." Go back to the sovereignty teaching. The fact is, and there are many needs represented in this body, God can heal every one of us right now, the manifestation of it. Why doesn't He? Good question, but what we know is God is good, His ways are right, His promises are yea and amen, and that all things work together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purpose.

So we're not trying to figure out whether God can or whether He wants to, because He can and He wants to, amen? What we are doing is hoping, believing, and boasting on His goodness in the midst of the process of the manifestation of our healing. And I say it that way because like any good Baptist, "Let me remind you..." You know, we've given the Baptists a little bit of a hard time sometimes--rightfully so. We give them a little hard time sometimes, and the fact that they talk about the ultimate healing. We are going to be whole when we take on our new body, amen? Every promise of God is based upon God's eternal being. It has to be culminating in eternity. God does not make the promises to the covenant children limited to time and space. It's all for eternal purposes, and many of them we experience in time and space. So, I don't want to go into this and get too sidetracked. I just want you to have some of that in your thinking as we look into the promise of God's Word. And the promise of His Word is, "I am the Lord that healeth thee." We need to grab ahold of that and rest in that and boast in that.

So let's turn to Exodus, Chapter 15, and just start off there again and go back and refresh ourselves in the Word of God and allow our faith to grow and to believe that God in all His sovereign power has made these decrees to us and nothing can thwart His will. So, we begin to realize that and rest in those things as we hope in the Lord. We just see the great revelation of who God is, and in the eleventh verse, the Scripture says, "Who is like unto thee O Lord among the Gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?"

We begin to see the majesty of our God again and there is none like Him, this separateness that we've always talked about. He's other than, He's above all, He's unique, He is distinct, and He is holy, separate. As the Spirit is speaking here and magnifying God, He says, "Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed [Swallows up the enemy] them. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto the holy habitation" (Verses 12, 13). So, this rejoicing and this boast in the Lord and all of the great victories that are being won and the people are being established as God's covenant people. We are going to talk about that in the study, the fact that we have a covenant with God. We are a unique people. Aren't you glad there's a balm in Gilead? We have a Healer in our midst, praise God! A source of divine wholeness that's available to us. The mistake that we've made, many of us in the past, is we've thought some of us, that we had to merit that. "If I work hard, and if I study hard and if I confess much then I'll get healed." It's for all of us, weak and strong.

The good news is that in the spiritual realm the waters are always troubled and we can step in, praise God, because we're not looking to be healed, we're looking to relate. We're looking to just have an encounter with God. We're looking to just enjoy His majesty. I want to be touched because I want to know His glory. That's the way we need to begin to approach it. It's not for the physical; it's not for the momentary. So, when we're studying healing, I want you to see that it's more than just our physical wholeness; it's our encounter with Father. I'm not seeking physical healing, I'm seeking a supernatural encounter, a divine encounter. I don't want to be the same! Physically, yes, I want to be healed, but I want the hand of God to touch me, because as we are going to see in the Scriptures that if things are working right when God touches and heals us there should be a cleansing, and a forgiveness of sins, and a sanctifying process in our lives as covenant children that accompanies that. Not like the pagans who are just looking for a quick fix or something that makes life easier on them and they can be down the road.

"How is it that only one has returned to give me thanks? Weren't there ten?" So, what I'm sharing is: let's have the heart of the thankful one, the one that's seeking the glory of God, the one that is not about their own comfort and ease, but about after having been touched by the hand of God giving glory to Him in the midst of the people. That's what we are seeking. So, as the Spirit of God is speaking to us here in Exodus and we find these words being spoken in the twenty-sixth verse as he is speaking to them concerning the covenant and the process of bringing them into a land that flows with milk and honey. The Scripture tells us, "...if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God and wilt do that which is right in His sight and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26). I will put none of these diseases upon you which I have put upon the Egyptians. We see here a couple of different things. He's making the distinction of judgment and that sickness is a consequence of sin. Now, one of the things that we've misunderstood over all the years is that we think that sometimes we're sick or this thing is upon us is because there is sin in our life. That's not what I'm saying. Sin is in the world because there's a devil. Sickness is in the world because there is a devil. "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil," Acts 10:38 tells us.

So, what we are looking at here is the realization that if we're in this world we are going to be encountering sickness and disease. The germs that are out there are things that we have to contend with--colds, and the flu, cancer. It would be nice if none of these things affected us because then even things like calories wouldn't affect us and that would be great. As far as too many of them, you could just eat what you want, but we are part of this world's process. What he's making the distinction of here, Egypt is a type of what? The world. He says sickness and disease is dominating the world. It's part of the judgment of sin, because the day that you eat thereof you shall die.

Then he makes a distinction and this is what is so beautiful about this passage of Scripture, "You are no longer part of the world, you're now a covenant people. You've come out from among them and been separate, and now, "I am the Lord that healeth thee." You are a people that have a privilege now of living above sickness and disease in the world. We are no longer under the judgment of it or the total power of it any more than sin has dominion in our bodies. How many of you still sin? How many of you still get sick? But it doesn't have dominion over us. We should believe and know that we shouldn't get as sick as everybody else gets. Do you believe that? I do. I don't believe in getting sick. I get sick but I don't believe in it. It doesn't have a right. I am a covenant child and I expect to walk in victory over that. It's the same thing--I've stood up here and taught when I've had a 103-degree fevers and been sick as a dog and teach the exact same thing, because my experience doesn't change the promises of God. We are a covenant people. He's the Lord our healer, praise God!

So, once we establish that, we've established the thing of having to pray. "Well, I wonder if God..." God is sovereign and He will administer His will for us in the time and manner that He pleases. He has declared to you and me that He is the Lord our healer. He is the source of it and it is His will to heal us because Isaiah 53:5 says, "By His stripes we are healed." So, I'm not trying to get healed, I am healed and I'm trying to find out how and when God is going to show it. In the midst of all of that I am praising Him and thanking Him because I believe that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose, and I'm hoping, favorably expecting. It's just like the prayer of Gethsemane, "Not my will but, thy will be done. But, if it be possible..." (Matthew 26:39).

Now, how many of you here sick tonight would rather it happen right now? Anybody here? Amen; I am with you, but what happens is that like natural man we start making that become the focal point, not the jealousy of His glory, and not His covenant being fulfilled, and a relationship being built to where we can trust in Him. I'm going to trust in Him whether it manifests or doesn't manifest. I'm going to trust in Him when I'm hurting just as much as when He's delivered me from that pain.

Don't get discouraged about your discouragement. You know, when you are really hurting, that's a discouraging time. He knows that our frames are just dust. He's been touched with the feeling of our infirmities, the Scripture says. Jesus Himself became weary. Jesus Himself, the Scripture says, in Gethsemane, sweat these drops of blood as He endured temptation and cried out, "Let this cup pass from me, take this thing off of me. Nevertheless, not my will, thy will be done." So, as we begin to see the promises it's very important for us to rest again in this one established fact that He is the Lord our healer.

Go over to the twenty-third chapter of Exodus for just a moment. Where we can get in trouble if we're not careful, and I'll probably speak toward this a number of times as we are looking at the promises. Don't fall into that trap that we talked about in the sovereignty healing of trying to figure any of this out. How many of you have tried to figure it out at a time? Let me see, really, okay. "The reason I'm sick is because I got to talk to this nurse... and the reason I'm sick is because ...." You don't know! There's nothing in the Scripture that tells us that we will ever understand the sovereign wisdom of God as it pertains to these daily demonstrations of His grace, His mercy, His faith, His power.

The Scripture makes it very clear what you and I are to do. If we are sick we call for the elders of the church, they anoint us with oil, and they pray the prayer of faith and, say it. The elders raise you up; your faith raises you up? And the Lord...it is simple, isn't it? Getting healing is just a piece of cake. You just do what Father told you to do and then just spend the rest of your time bragging on it, and boasting in God, and saying what the Word of God has to say, and thanking God for the finished work, and the balm of Gilead, and the Lord that heals us.

Exodus 23, the Scripture says in verse 20, "Behold, I send the angel before thee... Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions..." He's about my glory. Constantly we are being reminded of the need to live separate lives, and holy lives, and obedient lives. Not for merit, not because that's what gets us healed but, because that's what honors God. Holiness will never get you healed. Obedience won't get you healed, but [its lack] will cause you not to be.

So He's talking about the glory of His name. Then He goes into verse 22, "But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies [I will cut them off unto thine enemies.] and an adversary unto thine adversaries. ...but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images, [Verse 24.] And ye shall serve the Lord your God and He shall bless thy bread, and thy water, [Sounds like you're in prison, bread and water.] and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee." And I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

So we begin to see another promise here that God is wanting to move in and remove sickness out of our midst. I'm not real familiar with what's going on. I don't stay in great touch with the news. I won't be able to speak toward this clearly, but I think there's something about some bird problems or some disease with birds or something that they think could become pandemic, and a plague or something, over in parts of Asia and different things. Many people are getting frightened of that and the doomsday people are saying that this disease is going to wipe us out. And these guys say that we are going to get hit with a meteor and these guys are saying global warming and these guys are saying... God is going to do it. God is going to wipe this planet out and I think it's going to be soon. Even so, come quickly, Lord.

We realize that in the midst of all of this, and part of the reason that I wanted to teach on this, I believe that we are going to be facing many more diseases as the days are coming. We are going to have to learn how, by faith, to walk in the midst of disease whether it's the bird stuff or whatever else it might be, HIV. Just like God's covenant people in Egypt, be able to be in the midst of that and have the blood over our doorposts so that that angel doesn't touch us, amen? We need to start believing God. And, very frankly, many of us have been vexed in this day that we're living in. We have been trusting in vitamins and doctors and all of the different things that are around us. I want you to know that there's a time coming. They don't have the answers for everything. Yet, we are beginning to put confidence in them that I think is robbing from the glory of God.

That's why I want to take a little bit of this time. I want to point our eyes back to the glory of God and the Lord our Healer. I want us to go back again and begin to have faith in and a boast in the stripes of Jesus, and not the fact that they're on the verge of finding the aging gene. The argument shouldn't be by well-meaning Christians, "We oppose stem cell research," and all of the different things that are the cry. All of that is the tower of Babel. All of that is the exaltation of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All of that is the prophecy of the last days, "And knowledge shall abound." If that's what is happening, what are we doing to prepare ourselves as partakers of the tree of life, the ones who are living by faith, the ones that are then going to put our trust in God? Now, I know you can go to extremes. When I say extremes, you cannot be too extremely in faith, okay? "Well, that's extreme." You can't be too extremely in faith. When I talk about extreme I'm talking about going over and trusting in works, in your own ability and not in God and His promises. I look back at my own life and the lives of my children as we were raising them up. I think back, for instance, in Kimberly's life and as we were trusting and believing God. Through her whole childhood she didn't have any shots, she never took any medicine. How many of you have seen that beautiful smile that she has? How many of you've seen the gap in Hailey's teeth? You can stick a quarter in there. Kimberly was exactly that way. I mean it's genetic, that's exactly her grandmother. Grandma Cherry was that way. But when she was just about Hailey's age I laid hands on her and prayed and believed God to make her teeth straight and whole, and God healed her. Not braces. God healed her and gave her that smile.

Some of that conviction that came on me the other day is: so why am I not believing for Hailey? What have we lost? What have we lost? Me, what have I lost? Where is that expectation? Where's the expectation of the miracle instead of braces or whatever else it might be? I remember Star when he was little; falling down and hitting his mouth on the curb and it killed his tooth. His tooth was completely black, and I remember praying for him and commanding life to come back into that tooth. And then I would refuse to believe anything or look at anything else other than the promise of God, and just hoping and believing for God and the glory of God and seeing God bring that tooth back to life. "Oh, they have new things that we can do and they can implant, don't worry about it. They can implant a new one." Where's our faith today?

Now, the one thing we don't want to do is to get under condemnation, and the other thing that we don't want to do is start thinking, "Well, now I have to do something." God is our healer, amen? He wants to make us whole. He wants us to come in--and my motive back then was just for God to be glorified for Him to be in my everyday life. I just want God in my everyday life. I want Him to be the source of my daily bread. I don't want Him to be somebody I pray to; I want Him to be somebody I hang out with. That's the walk that is available to us. That's what this healing is all about when He's making the distinction between Egypt and the covenant people and His desire, as the Scripture said to us here, to cause us to be victorious.

Look what the whole thing is about here, it's about whipping the devil is what these verses were about, about opposing the enemy. Look here in verse 23, "For mine angel shall go before thee and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hiivites and the Jebusites." You know the Jebusites they're pharmacists, and the Canaanites are surgeons, and the Amorites are very good at diagnosis. That's the world. He said, "I'm going to bring you into their midst and I'm going to cut them off and I'm going to drive them out from before you, and I will be the one that takes sickness from the midst of you." That's not what those tribes really were; I was just making that up.

What we are looking at here is the separateness of who we are. "I will take sickness from the midst of you." "I will make all your enemies, (verse 27), turn their backs to you." I like that, don't you? I want you to know something: these diseases that many of us are dealing with right now, that's His enemies and they are going to turn their back to us and they'll flee, praise God! As sickness has come against us, it's going to flee in seven ways. I think we just need to come back and stir ourselves up again in who we are and what Satan is trying to take from us. We're at war. You know what? Very frankly, this is not going to be easy. This message you would think would be one that would be comforting to us, but at the same time what it's really saying to us is that we can't put our confidence in the world anymore, in the flesh. Most of us have gotten comfortable there as it pertains to these areas.

You know, I have to say this most of the time, sadly, but I'm going to take time to say it, and most of us like to say, "Yeah, amen," when it comes to our kids and they are sitting there burning up with a 105 degree temperature--"Don't you give them any of that medicine. We are believing God." Practice on yourself, amen? Get it working for you and then start--we always like to experiment with our kids. "We are just believing God." Many of us over the years have experienced the visitation of God and seen the hand of God. I'm just trying to encourage us. I'm not putting any of us down because I'm talking to me. I'm trying to encourage us to get back to trusting God and to put our trust in these promises, and the fact that He is the Lord that heals us. He is the One that promised to take sickness out of the midst of us.

Psalm 103, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases" (Verses 1-3). "Bless the Lord Oh my soul." That blessing of the Lord; that praise and that worship and that honoring of God is before the manifestation of the healing, not after. He's blessing the Lord for forgiving all his iniquities and yet sin still manifests in our lives, but thank God that the power of it is broken. I want to tell you something: if you never experience the manifestation of healing you ought to praise God and thank Him for your healing that you have a right to it, because the world doesn't have a right to it. We have a right to it! It's ours, praise God! The fact that we are part of the covenant, the fact that we are part of God's children--that's what we are rejoicing in, what our inheritance is. Whether it manifests now or manifests in eternity, it's ours. We are sons of God, and heirs, and joint heirs with Christ Jesus. "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name."

Now with that promise in Psalm 103, we might need to do another little word study. Now, how many do you think all means? Just the big one. For headaches you take pills, for the aches and pains and arthritis and just getting old, you take pills, but then, you know when it's serious. When this thing could become like debilitating or this could become fatal, "We better pray and we better look to God about this. This is getting serious." "Who healeth, say it, all of them." He wants to take them all, praise God! There is nothing too big and there's nothing too small. Let's let Him be glorified in the small ones, to where our boast is in Him, to where we are looking for that covenant to be effected in our lives, for God to be glorified.

Now, the glorification isn't just in the manifestation of the healing; because we are not just about seeing Father glorified before men, we are looking for God to be glorified in the heavenlies. Father is glorified, honored among all of the rebellious principalities and powers every time you cry out in the name of Jesus, and profess in that healing. Every time you acknowledge Him as Jehovah Rapha, His glory is declared. Every time we cry out and say, "Lord, I thank You that You that You are the Lord that heals me," and in the heavenlies the Lord is being glorified by the words of your mouth.

We are going to see in just a moment that Satan and the demons begin to tremble. See, a lot of this sickness that we are dealing with is demonic. Its demonic forces that are causing much of the afflictions that we experience. You don't hear a lot about that in twenty-first century America. We talk a lot about diseases, but much of what we classify today as disease--and I know what medical science says and I know the people, the "enlightened," of our day say. "Well, those people they were so archaic that they would attribute to demons things that were really physical." No, they attributed things that were physical to physical and to demons, demons.

Many of us have lost sight of that, and in our prayer we're really not taking authority over principalities and powers. We are addressing the physical when we need to be addressing the spiritual. We'll look at that in just a moment, but as we see His will to heal us in every different area we then see. "I am the Lord that healeth thee." "I will take sickness away from the midst of thee." "...who healeth all of thy diseases." We are so familiar with these passages that, many times, they don't really carry the magnitude that they would to those who are not over-familiar with them. Do I need to remind you that in Nazareth Jesus could not do any mighty works because they were over-familiar with Him, but could only heal a few sick folk? I like the way He says it, "Healed a few sick folk." Jesus was country. "He just healed a few of the sick folk." He couldn't do many mighty works because of their unbelief. Unbelief, many times, is evidenced in just an over-familiarity, an over-familiarity with these verses; a thinking that we understand divine healing; an assumption that we know the methods of God, not the will of God. I don't think there are any of us in here that would believe other than it's the will of God for us to be healed according to [the Word of God].

Where we get into trouble again is in that sovereign aspect. What did we say was one of the greatest problems with the misunderstanding in application of sovereignty and apathy? "Well, if He's going to do it, He's going to do it." No. Any more than if He's going to heal me, He's going to heal me. We need to pray, we need to fast, and we need to declare His promises. How actively are you opposing the disease in your life? How actively are you opposing the unbelief in your life? What are we doing to prepare ourselves with the Word of God, creating this hope, this favorable expectation that God says belongs to us? The one thing that is probably the greatest benefit of a study in the doctrine of divine healing is that it necessitates us drawing closer to Jesus. It necessitates us because He is the balm of Gilead. It's by His stripes that we are healed, that communion, that fellowship. God anointed Jesus of Nazareth to go about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.

He's the same healer today, it's His will. What we are going to see in just a moment is He wants it to be effected through our ministry. Go back to Mark 6; I made reference to that just a moment ago. Let's turn to Mark 6 for just a second and look a little bit at the practical part of this. We so often spend a lot of time in Matthew 10, and Luke 9 and 10, and this Mark 6 passage kind of gets overlooked. As we made reference to this sixth chapter, Jesus is being rejected at Nazareth and they are questioning who He really is. "Isn't this Mary's son, but how is He doing all these things?" Jesus responded to them, "...A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them" (Verses 4, 5).

As we are going to study healing here for just a moment, we are going to talk about the prayer of faith, but we are also looking here at something that's very practical, the laying on of hands. One of the methods, not the sole method, but one of the methods is--and people often wonder why you lay your hands on people; because Jesus did; because there is a tangible anointing that's in those of us that have been in the presence of God; those of us that have imbibed the Rhema of God or our spirits have been revitalized by faith, the power of God. This anointing is transferable. We lay hands on people and power emanates from us. It's a tangible anointing. It's most observed in that story we all know of the woman with the issue as she is working her way through the crowd and Jesus is being touched by everybody. People are grabbing Him and touching Him and He's famous and they want to say, "I touched the man of God, I touched the prophet of God." Some may have even been thinking, "If I can touch Him then I'll be whole." "If I can touch Him I'll be whole." This woman said in her heart, "If I can touch Him, I'm going to be healed." See, you can have the doctrine of touching Him and you can have faith, and the faith comes from God. It is not merited, it's sovereignly infused in us and then we choose to obey God, and obeying God and having faith doesn't make things easy.

We've talked about this before so many times as we've studied this passage of Scripture, but remember what that lady was going through. She was going against the tradition of that day, wasn't she? Women had no rights to involve themselves in that type of ministry. For this woman to be touching these men, and pulling her way through, and making her way through the crowd was, socially and spiritually, totally unacceptable. "If I can touch Him I'll be made whole. I can touch Him; if I can just touch the hem of His garment." Jesus is being assaulted by all of these people and all of a sudden He just stops. I don't know about you, but this passage, every time I meditate on this passage, it does something to me. Here is Jesus just stopping dead in His tracks, all of this chaos going on around Him, people thronging and touching Him, calling His name, and He just stops and He says, "Who touched me." Can you imagine what everybody around Him must have been thinking, "Who touched me? What do you mean, who touched you?" "Somebody touched me in faith; I perceive that virtue has gone out of my body."

You know, a lot of us have prayed, and prayed, and prayed and never touched Him. To be touched by Him, to be changed, is more than just getting healed in our bodies, but his communion, this embracing of the promise of God for His divine purposes. Here Jesus laid His hands on a few of the sick folk and they were healed. Now, there's no merit in and of itself, but when is the last time, whether it's a brother, sister, a friend or whatever, you know what they are battling and different things, and you just say, "We'll be praying for you." Why don't you go over and lay your hands on them? Why? Because the Scripture says, "And they shall lay hands upon the sick and they shall recover." The average person doesn't understand that.

I was telling the story to a Jew the other day out in Vegas about the lady that was healed all those years ago when I prayed for that jeweler's mother. Greer is wearing that pendant right now, that 3-carat diamond. It's a not a good diamond, it's an ugly diamond. It's not worth much. It's probably not even worth $10,000; somewhere in that area, $10,000--$15,000. I wouldn't take $50,000 for it. I wouldn't take $100,000 for it. (Over that I'd be tempted. No, just kidding.) Most of you remember the story, but I was there buying the necklace for my mother for Christmas and this guy immediately started to leave right in the middle of our transaction. He said, "I'm sorry, I have to go. I just got a call; my mother is not expected to live until I get to the hospital." I said, "I'm a believer and I said I believe that by the stripes of Jesus we are healed and I can pray and God will heal your mother." This guy is a Jew, he wasn't a Hasidic, but he was orthodox. I said, "Would you mind me praying?" He said, "No, I would like that," but, he didn't expect what was going to happen next. I reached over the counter, took his hand--this was Christmas time, the store is full. I mean it's packed and I began to pray, "Father, in the name of Jesus", every head there, [Pastor makes noise and demonstrates his head quickly bowing] all business stopped. "Father, in the name of Jesus I'm asking you to heal this man's mother. Satan, we take authority over you, we refuse death. I'm asking You, Father, by the stripes of Jesus to make this woman whole, that she would know that You've raised Jesus from the dead. Amen." The guy took off.

I come back the next few days to pick my mom's gift up as they were preparing it. I walk in the store and he says, "You'll never believe it, you'll never believe it!" I say, "Yeah, I will. Tell me, what's up?" "My mother's home. She was not expected to live. My mom's home, she's well!" I said, "Isn't Jesus good?" This orthodox Jew says, "Yes!" See, that's why we pray for the healing. He was exalted in their midst, He was confirmed as the Messiah by the signs and the wonders that He did, the Scripture said.

What are we doing to prepare ourselves to be used of God to establish His Sonship, His Lordship in our generation? I guarantee you that you're going to get people's attention this way. He said, "I want to give you a gift." I said, "I don't want any gift." He said, "No, really, I want you to have this." He gave me that ring with that diamond in it. That's a memorial to God, but as I look at it today it convicts me to be even more ready to pray for those that are--I still pray for people as the Lord presents it. It's much a part of my life, doctrinally, and even practically, but I can't say tonight that it's the fire in my bones that it was at one time. I wouldn't even say it's because of apathy. I would say that God has been doing different things in our lives, my life and yours. I would say that what God has been emphasizing in our midst is the sovereign purpose of God and He was not emphasizing this part of His covenant. In the midst of these last--we've seen people healed in our midst, we've seen physical miracles.

As the Lord begins to speak these things to us right now, there's a reason. He's wanting us to prepare ourselves, I think, for the hour that we are going into. He's wanting to begin to show Himself mighty, I think, in this generation. As man is more and more publicly boasting in all that they can do through all of their microbiology, and all of their genetic engineering, and all of their stem cell research, and they are fixing all of these potential cloning procedures, a people needs to stand up and say, "There's a balm in Gilead." So as we look at this, and just say, "Lord, how can we best be used of You? How can we see You glorified in our lives?" Jesus said, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country." Let's not have become so familiar with a doctrine. Let's not be like Israel who say, "We of our father, Abraham. We're of the people who used to know great healings." What about today, amen?

We can read the stories of the Smith Wigglesworths, and the A.B. Simpsons, and we can talk about the F.F. Bothsworths, we can talk about Katherine Kuhlman. I can go back and recite, personally, some of the greatest miracles that I have experienced that have occurred in the twentieth century; but what about today?

What about today? How is He being glorified in our midst? Is there a desire not to just to get physically well, but for God to be glorified in our midst? As we are praying for whoever it might be that God has put on your heart, we have numerous needs as you see on the prayer list. Let's not just pray because they are special friends. Let's not even just pray because we feel that maybe God has placed this one on our heart, but let's begin now to focus on God being in our midst, showing Himself mighty. He's been in our midst in a great way. I don't know if you're aware of it, but we've been through a great revival here in the last six months. God has changed hearts. God has healed lives. God has plucked souls from the fire just like the last day brands being taken out. Many of our young people, young adults, God has spared lives, God has healed marriages. You want to talk about miracles, but in the midst of all of that we want to be able to come back and experience the full covenant of God in every area--spirit, soul and body. "I am the Lord that healeth thee," the Scripture says.

So, it's available to all of us and we'll finish with this one for this evening. This is the last verse. "He could only heal a few sick folks, and He marveled at their unbelief and went around the villages teaching" (Mark 6:6). Then the Scripture says, "And He called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and he gave them power over unclean spirits; And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats" (Mark 6:7-9), because the laborer is worthy of their hire. "If you'll go out and be about my business I am going to take care of you, I'll support this thing." Now, He is speaking to the apostles here that are about His business full-time that are out doing His work. "To whatever place you enter, whatever house you enter into stay there, don't depart." "And he said unto them, In what place so ever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place" (Verse 10). Basically, what He's saying is: the people that have faith, the people that want your ministry and you enter in stay there. And the guy down street there says, "Hey, you know, I've got..." You're there and you're there in a little cot in the corner and these are the people of God and they've invited you and they're excited about the presence of God. Then the guy calls and says, "Hey, I have a Mercedes you can drive and you can use the pool down here," and you say, "I really appreciate your faithfulness, catch you at church."

He is saying, "Recognize the faithful. Recognize those that are hungry for God. Don't change locations. I've directed your steps; I've put you where you are supposed to be. Whoever receives you, then you can speak peace upon them and it's going to remain. Those that have rejected you have rejected you have rejected Me. I want you to shake the dust off your feet to those that are rejecting and it will be a more tolerable day for Sodom and Gomorrah in the final day of judgment than for those." "So, they went, the Scripture says, and they preached that men should repent, and they cast out many devils," and did something else. What is it? "Anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them."

So, we see a couple of things going on here. We see the laying on of hands, we see the anointing oil, and we see that it's now being ministered by Jesus through His church. These signs shall follow them that believe in My name. "...They shall lay hands upon the sick and they [say it] shall recover." So, as we are looking into this healing we're not looking to Jesus (points heavenward), we are looking to Jesus in us (points heartward). This healing, this power is going to be something that He wants to distribute through us, through the laying on of our hands, through the prayer of faith, through the anointing with oil.

So, what we are closing with this evening is this: Are we going to become candidates? Are we going to be those, "Here am I Lord, send me. I want to be used, Father. I just want to know your glory." Where is the fire, where is the compassion? Where's the jealousy for Your glory that we used to know as we attacked Satan? See, this is about turning back on the devil. This is about getting fed up with the people that are being attacked in our midst and turning it back on the devil and resisting him and watching him flee from us.

Father, we just ask You tonight that You would stir our hearts in this warfare and let us see it for what it is. We are under attack. It's time that we raise up as a mighty army of God and remember again who we are as the covenant children. That You've given us all power and all authority over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means harm us. You're the God that takes sickness out of the midst of us. You're the Lord that heals us of all of our diseases, praise God! So we rejoice in that, Father, and we ask You to do that work in us. So, those of you this evening that have a need in your life, a need in your body to be touched, the word of God has done a work in you about the glory of God, I just want you to stand on your feet right where you are, just stand up. If you need healing and you say, "I just want to be healed for the right--I want God glorified. I just want to know the presence of God in my life." Just stand where you are and just begin to worship Him and thank Him for what He's doing in your life. Thank Him for the promises of God that are sure to a thousand generations.

Hallelujah! Just begin to thank Him that you're part of the covenant. You are not any longer a citizen of Egypt. He will no longer put these diseases upon you, but He's the Lord that heals you, praise God! Hallelujah! Just begin to rejoice in that goodness. There's a balm in Gilead, there's a balm in Gilead. Now those that are around them, God has called you, He's anointed you, praise God! There is absolutely no reason why you can't stand up, put your hands on one of these people and see them healed in the name of Jesus. "And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name..." Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Lord, for using me. Thank You, Lord, for sending me.

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