Ep. 271 - What Does the Bible Teach About Healing?

Today , as we pray for the healing of our friends or loved ones who suffer severe illness or disease , we too should believe that God is able to heal , either directly or through conventional means . To say I have faith that God will heal is presumptuous , since we do not know the mind of God . But to say God is able to heal is to exercise faith .

Sometimes , friends , things in life change , sometimes for the better , other times for the worse . Or is it worst ? No , I think worse . It's worserism . And sometimes , friends , even holy things become unholy . I know where this is going and today , friends , we're talking about a massive change in the life of Ray Comfort and his sleeping habits .

Ray , tell us about your once holy bed , now your unholy . Or should ?

I thought I'm going to fill in the hole because it was so painful . That's what caused it , I think .

spine when I was lying in the bed . So I cut a hole in the bed about eight inches deep by about a diameter of about 14 inches , with a big knife . It was one of those foam mattresses yeah , purple mattress , I have a picture of it by the way yeah and um , it looks like the grand canyon , uh , in a smaller version .

And my back came right instantly and it's been right for years until I had the hip problem , which is probably caused by the hole in the bed , which I sure god didn't expect human beings it .

Years ago , when I traveled , um , like four years ago , after I dug the hole in the bed and I go to a hotel although I can't really dig a hole in the hotel , so I had to kind of create , with four pillows , a hole no in , like yeah , and sleep in a man-made so did it get ?

Jacob and Catherine , or Cat Kuyper and Chloe , may and Ariel they're kids and they sent us bags and bags of almonds . They're actually farmers here in California and we've met them at the Shepherds Conference . I know , mark , and I have at least .

I don't know if you did before , but yeah , our dear brother Jacob has given us gifts almost every time at the Shepherds Conference and this time he was going to give them to us at the conference . We didn't end up connecting , but he sent them and they were delicious .

Oh , and a plug , another plug , if you guys remember our dear friends , the Moors , who sent us all that amazing stuff . You guys remember I mentioned on the podcast the painting in my office with Jesus walking on water and how I said . You know , I was going to put the verse that comes from that scene Lord save me . But we didn't do it .

I get a little package in the middle . I open it and it's a little plaque that says Lord , save me in the verse Really . Yeah , Unbelievably it fit right between the canvas and the channel on the frame perfectly . I didn't have to stick it on or anything .

But you try to make people uncomfortable , mr Comfort , by reminding them hey , even though we all struggle with it , we're all called to overcome it for a greater purpose .

Today , friends , we are dealing with a topic that I think sometimes , especially people in more conservative circles like ours stay away from , and it's a subject of what does the Bible teach about healing , healing .

I just thought of that when I thought about hearing . I don't know if you guys have ever seen those videos where you'll have someone who is hearing

for the first time . Oh man , those get me every time . I mean even thinking about it . Right , you get the chills , like someone hearing their child's voice or their mom or their dad's voice for the first time .

But you know , ray , one of my favorite favorite clips of all time is a clip from Comfort's Favorites , where that man's voice is healed . Yeah , when he's reading .

On that thing , though , ray was on the backside .

Yeah , so maybe we can put it in the description . Mark too , that's a good idea , because people are going to be really annoyed . Yeah , so anyway .

So , guys , this is an important topic to tackle because there has been a lot of hoopla , if I could use that term , and a lot of excess a lot of fake healings , a lot of showmanship and it's just become theatrical . Horrible , oscar , what do you think of that ? I mean , you've been a leader in a church , you've ministered the gospel to people .

Do you see that as an element of disillusionment for a lot of people ? Like , look at you , all these crazy faith healers on TV running around hitting people with their jackets , blowing on people hitting people on the head Like what in the world ?

I can remember personally looking at those televangelists , like the Benny Hens of the world , as an atheist , and using them as an example to mock Christianity and of course , I had a distorted view of what it meant to be a Christian , but nonetheless that , nonetheless , that happens and you hear story after story .

I remember hearing one story of a single mom and a son son's in a wheelchair . They live in Florida and they , like she , quit her job . They sold everything they had because there was this call to travel to Northern California to go to a church , because if you showed up they were going to have this magical healing service , you know .

And this family tells the story about selling everything they have heading out there because they had , they didn't have very much money . They get there , she , she rolls them up on the wheelchair and they have a security guard standing between him and the stage . And the security guard says if you want to get on stage , I need you to stand up and he goes .

Well , I can't like , I'm in a wheelchair , I can't stand up , he goes . If you can't stand up , I can't let you up there . And they got turned away . He needed , like the security guard was like this filter . Can you at least stand up for me , because then it has this illusion . Look , this person is healed .

And , man , you hear that family tell that story about how they had no money to get back to Florida , how they put everything they had in this hope of being healed , and that's the problem with that spectacle .

And that just sickened me and I've never forgotten that and how stupid it was and how embarrassing it is for us as Christians to have to have things like this to try and explain to the world .

But then , on the other hand , you have those that , as a reaction to that , basically just say no , there's no more healing . Today God does not heal at all and I think it almost kind of removes any reality from the word where we do see healing happening . I mean , healing was very prominent within scripture .

You could look at all throughout the gospels examples the nobleman's son in John 4 , 46 , the man with an unclean spirit , mark 1 , 21, .

Simon Peter's mother-in-law I won't give all the references , you guys can look them up the healing of the leper , the healing of the paralytic , the man at Bethsaida , the man with the withered hand , the centurion's servant , the widow's deceased son , the demoniac at Gadara , the woman with the issue of blood , jairus' deceased daughter , the two blind men , the mute

possessed man , the daughter of the Canaanite , the deaf man with impediment , and on and on . I mean the list is long , but the New Testament is filled with examples of people being healed and it carries on into the Acts . So it wasn't just Jesus doing it .

We saw it with the apostles and the early disciples the lame man cured by Peter in Acts 3 , the many sick people healed by Peter , paul's sight restored , aeneas healed of the palsy , dorcas restored to life , the lame man who was cursed by Paul . Side note how would you like me named Dorcas ? I know I always thought about that Dorcas .

I think her real name was Tabitha too and they had to bring up Dorcas . But you know Eutychus restored to life , publius' father healed on the island . So you have examples of that sort of thing .

And I think that the important thing to recognize is that , while there are and I think everyone you know there's two camps sort of , there's the cessationalist and the continuationist , and one area that most cessational understanding of continuationism would say while nobody has the gift of healing , we expect God to heal in prayer and I would say we don't expect , we

hope , knowing that he can , knowing that he will . But the important thing to recognize as we read the scriptures , is that some people will be healed immediately , some people will be healed immediately , some people will be healed eventually and everybody will be healed on the other side of eternity when the kingdom comes right .

And you think of , like I think the book of Mark is such an interesting thing because Jesus goes far to make everyone aware of the conclusion that he is not a faith healer . Right Like , a large crowd gathers at Jesus after he heals Peter's mother-in-law . And what does Jesus say ?

He says let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also , for that is why I came . I didn't come to heal these people , I came to preach the gospel , which makes us wonder why did Jesus heal in the first place ? I think it's important to recognize that Jesus healed because he's compassionate , because he knows our needs .

But in the scriptures he also heals because healing is meant to tell us something about who he is and something about what we can expect when heaven comes . I love the way the theologian Dennis Nineham says it . He says there are more in miracles than their outward appearance . They are , to use the fourth evangelist words , signs of the power of God .

According to Mark , the miracles are like the parables they are meant to understand something . And then Paul Carter says miracles are like parables . They contain a much deeper meaning for all those who are willing to lean in and learn from them .

But , ray , one of the things that we've seen , you mentioned the leg lengthening thing . There have been guys that go out and that's their primary thing . You don't even hear them preach the gospel .

And he didn't even preach the gospel and I hoped my mom would be impressed with his teaching , but that night he just felt lengthened legs which we all need .

I've got a friend and you guys know him . He's 16 years old , went to church and had an aneurysm , remember Brandon ? Yes , texas went and visited him and he became paralyzed from the neck down and years ago he said would you pray for me ? Pray that God will give me a miracle . Do you think God wants to heal me ?

And I said , of course I'm going to pray for you . So every night I pray . I didn't say to him sorry , I don't believe God heals . Deal with it Now . I want to give him hope and the reason I , every night , have prayed for him for these many years is just Lord , please give him a miracle .

Please , you know , honor his faith and one day I may expect or hope to hear his mother call and say he's got feeling in his hands .

He says I went up for healing , for the laying on of hands of the elders to pray the prayer of faith . He said 38 times he elders and pray the prayer of faith . He said 38 times .

He said on the 38th time it felt like a bolt of lightning went down my spine and I was healed and it just reminded me of the words of Jesus when it came to that persistent woman with the judge and opportunity Just don't give up , just keep trusting the Lord you know , and don't throw coats at people or splash them with water .

Just pray the prayer of faith and trust God .

sorry , 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 . And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up , and if he's committed sins he'll be forgiven .

And I think it is important to remember that we see that as normative in the word , that God has a sort of a means given through which , if he chooses and that's operative he can heal . And we know the instance with Paul . Right , paul prayed three times that that thorn in the flesh would be removed from him .

Some believe it was a physical ailment , others think maybe it was a buffeter from Satan and that it was spiritual , or it could have just literally been a thorn in his flesh .

Right , we all believe because God can do whatever he wants , right , he does whatever he wants whenever he wants , and we appreciate that about him . I liked this quote from JC Ryle that I read . He said health is a good thing , but sickness is far better if it leads us to God . Amen , right , so we wanna be healed , we pray for healing and God ultimately .

As you had said earlier , oscar , that God one day is going to give us an ultimate healing as a believer , right , but until then , there's no guarantee that the blind will see that you as a believer , if you're blind , that you will always be able to see .

You know different gifts and again I'm speaking to those that believe that the sign gifts they're called are still for today . There are others , again on the other side of the aisle , that say no , those with the canonization of scripture and the passing of the apostolic age , but even those that do believe that they're still around .

There are those that are sober in their understanding of these things and they're tempered in the way that they apply these things .

And some would say 1 Corinthians 12 , 9 , which says to others gifts of healings by the same Spirit , that it's not saying the gift of healing in the sense that someone is a healer , but that the Lord could at times , as someone is praying for someone through that , give healing as a possibility . That's one of the views on that verse .

And I said do you want me to pray with you ? And he said yeah . So we prayed together and he didn't walk up and leap and praise God , but who knows , god could heal him . Yeah .

I understand that there will be ultimate healing and I know that God is sovereign and sometimes he chooses to heal , sometimes he doesn't , and I think it goes back to 1 John , 5 , 14 to 15 . Now , this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will , he hears us .

And if we know he hears us whatever we ask , we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him , and so you know there are a lot of people that deal with this irrational guilt . Oh , I must not believe enough . That's why I'm not here .

And then he says "'And he could do no mighty work there , "'except that he laid his hands on a few sick people "'and healed them , and he marveled because of their unbelief . In other words , their unbelief . The reason why God didn't do , jesus didn't do a mighty work there is because of the unbelief . Yet he still healed .

And then we see in Mark 9 , which is one of my favorite verses , I know I've quoted it before or stories is this father goes to Jesus and he's like heal my son . And and you know , the creator of the cosmos looks at this dad and is like do you believe ? And the dad's answer is I believe , but help me with my unbelief .

He's confessing his unbelief to the creator of the cosmos . And you might think like , oh man , jesus is gonna smite him , he's gonna tell him , he's gonna put him in his place , et cetera , et cetera . But he shows him compassion and heals his son in that moment .

And so , exactly , mark , the point here is that if God does not heal you , it is not because there's some secret sin in that person's life . It's not because that person doesn't have enough belief . It's not because they didn't pray enough , they didn't tithe enough , they didn't go to church enough .

Whatever the case , if God is not healing you , possibly it's the same reason why he allowed Paul to suffer , why he allowed so many of his servants , his apostles , to suffer and die . Because in the midst of your suffering , god is sanctifying you . He means to leave you with that , to draw you closer to him .

Sometimes our suffering is an act of grace that God is giving us so that we can depend more on who he is .

I remember reading Matthew Henry's commentary on the book of Judges and he points out that 13 of the 14 judges found in the book of Judges all had a handicap . Right , they all had a valid excuse why they were not the person for the job .

But God often uses our handicaps and our infirmities and our diseases to reach a different demographic of people , or just to reach us you know , to do a job , amen .

Or , stephen stoned to death and I'm sure they prayed , you know God , help them , those that were standing around . But God allowed that because his ways are infinitely far above our ways .

We live in a fallen , broken world , right , and scripture talks about the rain and the sun on the just and the unjust , and so it's important to remember that . And then we know that God sometimes , like we were talking about , allows sickness to continue for sanctifying purposes or for his glory , in ways that we can't understand , and that's important to remember .

But then we do know that there are times when God may use illness as a means of discipline in the life of a believer . We know that , even as scripture talks about those who did not partake of the Lord's supper appropriately . Some were sick and some even died . And we know again that God could use physical infirmity as a form of discipline .

The problem is when people pinpoint sin , pinpoint every sickness to sin , and that must be why , or if you're not healed , it's because you didn't repent as you alluded to Oscar .

no rum is a wine .

And then , when the bill came , it was like $10 just for that caramel sauce .

I am totally averse to modern medicine because I just need to trust that God is going to heal this infirmity . But modern medicine itself is an act of grace .

It's God's common grace to the world that we would be able to use it to heal , and anytime you go to a third world country , you'd see like someone will break an arm and they can potentially become paralyzed because they don't have modern medicine to heal them . I recently had surgery on my foot .

If it wasn't for that , it would start to cause knee pain and then hip pain , and et cetera , et cetera .

But God's grace extends beyond just his people , into all people , both sinner and saint , and he does that through what theologians would call common grace , which is to say anything that we experience in this world that is good , beautiful and true is God's common grace to the world . A non-believer has a child and loves that child .

We know that children are a gift from the Lord . That child is a gift to that non-believer . That is God's common grace . When we go to a restaurant , we order a great steak that's not overcooked .

Goodness , when it comes to morals and ethics is God's common grace to the world . And then truth is God's common grace to the world .

It's crazy . After an hour she got in the car , went back home and was walking around Hippy .

We think of it as a modern thing , but people have understood for ages how good it is , and I think , on that note as well , it's good to say look , sometimes we act as if , though , what we do in terms of what we eat and how we live and what our exercise habits are like , don't have any effect on us , but they do Absolutely , and sometimes we kind of

get ourselves in the places of illness where we could also use God's common grace in using the things he's given us to prevent us from getting sick , like good food and exercise and good sleeping habits and other things like that . I think Jerry Bridges put it well when it comes to faith in healing .

He says in the instances where faith is mentioned in Matthew 9 , the object of faith was in Jesus' ability to heal , not his will to heal . Today , as we pray for the healing of our friends or loved ones who suffer severe illness or disease , we too should believe that God is able to heal , either directly or through conventional means .

To say I have faith that God will heal is presumptuous , since we do not know the mind of God . But to say God is able to heal is presumptuous , since we do not know the mind of God . But to say God is able to heal is to exercise faith , and I love that , ray , and what you were speaking about before .

Like I believe God is able to heal , I'm going to believe that the Lord can do this if God wills

to do this . And it's important to remember that because otherwise believers get irrationally disillusioned , because they shouldn't be disillusioned , because God is God , he's sovereign , he reigns on the throne , but he could do whatever he pleases whenever he pleases you know .

First , miracles are like parables in the sense that it tells us that Jesus has power over all that we fear we fear disease , we fear the devil and we fear death , and Jesus shows he has power over all three of those . It also shows us that Jesus is the promised snake crusher that we've been waiting for All throughout the Old Testament .

There's this promise that we see in Genesis that he's going to send somebody that's going to reverse the curse . And what's amazing about the way John lays out his miracles is that he lays them out in a way that actually unwinds all of the plagues that we see happen in Egypt .

Right Like the first plague in Egypt is turning the Nile River into blood , the first miracle in John is Jesus turning water into wine . It's an inauguration of something new . The last plague is God taking the firstborn . The last miracle that we see Jesus perform in John's gospel is him raising the firstborn Lazarus from the dead . He's reversing the curse .

He's telling a greater story through his miracles that he is the promised snake crusher that we've been waiting for and finally , as we've already alluded to his miracles , tell us something about the future , and this is primarily to someone out there who is suffering whether you're suffering from a disease that plagues your body , whether you're suffering from a disease

that plagues your mind and you pray and you earnestly want to be healed and you long to be better . The promise of the gospel is that one day we will all be healed . Jesus says that every tear will be wiped away , that we will have new bodies .

And what he does , what he does , is amazing , because Jesus is God , is not just the God who stands over and above suffering . He is the one who has stepped in to suffering . He is the one who experienced the fullness of the wrath of God , who was completely and utterly crushed and abandoned , both physically , emotionally and spiritually . Why would God do that ?

So that we can be reconciled to him , so that we can look forward to eternity where we don't have to deal with the plagues of this world . God has done something about your suffering . So , christian , hold fast hope .

God himself will be with them and be their God , and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes . There shall be no more death , nor sorrow , nor crying . There shall be no more pain , for the former things have passed away , and oh , what a glorious day . That will be Our ultimate healing . That is God's promise , and we can hold onto that , friends .

And so look , if you're ill , if you're sick , do a scripture talks about in James 5 , that we touched on already Go , ask for the elders of the church to anoint you with oil , to pray over you , and then trust the Lord and recognize it . His will can be done . All right , friends . That's the end of this one . We hope you've been encouraged and inspired .

Don't forget Ray's book , anyone but Me . 10 Ways to Overcome your Fears and Be Prepared to Share the Gospel , living Waters Mug , the Evidence Study Bible , all at livingwaterscom . Thank you for joining us , friends . We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters Podcast , the one podcast you can't wait . Click , click to turn off . That's the wrong place .