DOES JEHOVAH GOD REALLY HEAL?
OUR GOD, REPRESENTED TO US AS THREE DISTINCT PERSONS, GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON, AND GOD THE HOLY GHOST, IS SUPERNATURAL, ALL POWERFUL, AND HE IS BEYOND HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. First, we don’t understand how our one God (monotheism) is clearly presented in Scripture in three different persons. Since we are finite men, we accept by faith what the Holy Bible teaches and proceed to trust. When we see Him face to face those things that are now quite unclear — “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face” — (1 Corinthians 13:12a) will be perfectly visible. If we can believe in God whom we have not seen, accept the Trinity while holding to His oneness and obey His Word in our daily lifestyle, it is also reasonable to believe in His power to heal our bodies.
The truth of forgiveness from our sins and escape from eternal hell are no more profound and sure than our assurance of bodily healing. Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of Satan. We all accept that the redemption of the earth is future and that death of all men is still certain until the rapture and return of Christ to earth. The curse of this earth will continue to have a devastating effect on man and his environment until that redemption. Believers are going to be subject to death or the rapture and until then they will deal with a body that is perishable. Jesus came to redeem us from sin’s penalty which we call being “born again”, preserve us from Satan’s destruction while we live as God’s children in this world; and to then glorify us with eternal redemption into His presence. His redemption is actually threefold. We were saved (redeemed from sin), we are being saved (delivered from Satan daily), and we are going to be saved (glorified in His likeness).
Divine Healing is an intimate part of the second fold aspect of our redemption in Jesus Christ. Divine healing is not divine health. Our bodies will always be perishable until we are glorified at His coming. Until then we must be saved (delivered) everyday and hour by His life imparted to us. That’s why we are the branches and He is the vine and if “we abide in Him” (St. John 15:1-17) we must bear fruit of the same nature as the vine. This is the source of our purity, our power, our joy, and our healing. Everything we experience in this Christian walk is His very presence and virtue manifest in our life by the daily action of the Word of God and the Holy Ghost.
Old Testament Presented Pictures Of Divine Healing! The first miracle of a Divine Healing in someone’s life was performed by Abraham on Abimelech’s wife and the women in his city/state. A curse had fallen on Abimelech because of deception on Abraham’s part. Sarah was Abraham’s half sister, so he told this to Abimelech in describing their relationship for fear of his own hide. He feared being slaughtered by Abimelech for his beautiful wife Sarah. While Sarah was captive in Abimelech’s haram, God poured out His wrath on all the women, closing up their wombs. Then God told the king the error of his way and he came both repenting and complaining at Abraham.
The spiritual matter was solved but his wife and women of this nation were barren and shamed because no children were being born. “So Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants; and they bare children. For the LORD had fast closed up all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah Abraham’s wife.” (Genesis 20:17-18)
Jehovah-Ratha; The Lord That Healeth Thee! When Moses and the children of Israel had escaped Egypt and were safely on the desert side of the Red Sea, they experienced their first crisis three days into the wilderness. They found no water until they came to an oasis called Marah. The water was bitter and the crowd was uneasy and murmuring. A miracle occurred in which the Lord showed Moses a tree that transformed the water from bitter to sweet. Then God spoke to Moses about two things: obedience and trust. We call it in old-fashioned terms, “Trust and obey, for there is no other way.”
“And said, 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)
This group of Israelites had seen the curse and plagues upon the Egyptians. The land of Egypt was then as now, a place of heathenism, horrible fear, depression, and terrible diseases. Life had been an exasperating experience with task masters and bondage. God didn’t just deliver them from the place of wickedness to ignore their depressed, diseased and fearful state as they trudged through the desert-like wilderness, He was ready to show them His second act. He was (and is) Jehovah-Ratha; “the Lord that healeth thee.” This name is a revelation or redemptive name that shows God Jehovah’s Eternal Son though still in His Father’s bosom. Calvary and the stripes for healing were in the Father’s heart and foreknowledge as He expresses this “Healing Provision.” All redemption, Old Testament and New Testament, meets on a hill called “Mount Calvary.”
It is clear that this provision was intimately related to the commandments and statutes that God had given to guide their life. As soon as the Ten Commandments had been written and explained, the Father again gave His promise of protection and healing from diseases. They must live within the protection of these laws for they were spiritual walls around their life and then He promised, “And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfill. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.” (Exodus 23:25-27)
What an overwhelming promise! There is more beauty and power in this Old Testament provision than most present day Christians are experiencing in our “far exceeding promises that we have in Jesus Christ.”
For 450 years there were no doctors or medical practitioners in all of Israel. They trusted God and lived in those promises. The Rev. John G. Lake, one of the great ministers of the past who was used to bring healing to thousands, said the following, “Israel lived under that Covenant of Healing for four hundred fifty years, in one unbroken chain of time, a nation of millions.” Now this is the point I want to raise in your soul. They had no doctors, and they no medicine. Doctors and medicine belonged to the ungodly; they were common to the people who knew not God. The Gentile world had her doctors and medicine, but the Covenant people of God had no doctors and no medicine. They trusted God and God alone for four hundred fifty years. All the conditions of a great populace were met by the power of God. Children were born, old men and old women died: all the conditions of life in the nation were met by the power of God. God was demonstrated as God, able for every condition of life.
Here is what the Psalmist David said about that period of Israel’s history. “He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.” (Psalms 105:37) Only when Solomon brought his foreign wives (Jezebels) and their witch doctors did Israel begin to trust in other sources. “But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.” (1 Kings 11:1-2)
The only sickness known in Israel during this great period was when they disobeyed. One such example is found in the book of Numbers. “And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.” (Numbers 21:5-9)
This is a perfect picture of the source of disease and the provision for healing. They broke God’s commandments and a horrible pestilence invaded their camp. In every circumstance, sin, directly or indirectly, is the cause of sickness. We all experience, indirectly, the results of human sin but multitudes live in the bowels of this destructive and horrible filth. In these lives, sickness and disease are often multiplied many times over. When those who had sinned dragged themselves out of their tent into the vicinity of this brazen serpent and looked upon it, they were immediately healed.
The brazen serpent was probably hung on a crosspole which gave a perfect example of the cross. Even the word “looketh”, indicated more than a casual glance. The word in the Greek is Raah and means to see, perceive, experience and understand. It actually caused those who experienced this sight to see more than a piece of brass molded like a serpent, they saw redemption and received some limited vision of the coming Messiah and healer. They were instantly healed. Jesus, Himself, referred to this Old Testament example and said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.” (John 3:14)
As the great prophets told of Jesus Christ, the coming Messiah, they were careful to show both salvation from sin and healing from Satan’s afflictions. Isaiah, the statesman prophet, left no question about this subject. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5) He would lift mankind out of the destructive patterns that sin had introduced. Again, He doesn’t just save us out of Egypt (sin), He gives us healing and blessings as we travel through the wilderness toward Canaan. The Old Testament pattern is a perfect picture of the New Testament redemption. To suggest otherwise is outright blasphemous.
Saint Matthew quoted Isaiah’s passage in reference to Jesus Christ. He said, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” (Matthew 8:17) It cannot be stated more plainly. Jesus bore our infirmities and sicknesses in His body on the tree. They have already been carried into the presence of the Holy of Holies by virtue of His pain and death. They are as clearly removed from believing men as is sin. To deny this as a present atonement is to deny that future redemption will remove all the curse from the earth. If the cross doesn’t do it for the born again believer now, how could it do so for the entire creation then?
Quit asking, “Does our Heavenly Father heal?” and start believing and receiving what has clearly been provided.
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Ed Wood
It’s true that living in a sinful way can produce sickness. For someone who is promiscuous, or who smokes, or drinks, certainly the proof is there that these things can lead to sickness.
But not every sickness is due to the direct sin of the person afficted. In John, Chapter 9, Jesus’ disciples believed this and asked him who sinned, the man brought to him to be healed or his parents. Jesus said neither of these things, but so “the works of God should be made manifest in him.” Jesus healed him and this healing certainly demonstrated who he was – God’s Son.
Bad things will happen to good people, sickness included, because we live on a sin-poisoned world. Some people no matter how Godly, are NOT going not get healed while in the flesh. Some people, including innocent little kids, are going to be harmed by the Adam Lanzas of this world or stricken with disease. It’s just the way it is.
One day all these children and all believers WILL be healed of whatever adversity or sickness they had on Earth, but until we at last are gathered to meet Jesus in the clouds, those of us who are living we all are subject to living in this broken world and the collateral effects of it. (Luke 13:1-5)
But thankfully this may soon pass away.
Bill Scudder
I have prayed for many and have seen God heal them on the spot but healing is not in the atonement the same as the atonement is for our sin. Our sin has been wiped out for good. Our healing has not been. If healing was in the atonement then when we were saved we also would have received divine health and would never be sick. We are commanded to pray for the sick and them it is God that does or does not do the healing. When we get our new bodies then and only them will we have divine health and never be sick again.
Keith Black
SICKNESS AND SIN AND HEALING
Dear Joe Chambers,
Yes sin can lead to sickness, but there can be other causes too. Certainly someone involved in HOMOSEXUAL ADDICTION AND PROMISCURITY SEX ADDICTION ARE ALMOST GUARANTEED TO GET AIDS AND OTHER SEXUAL DISEASES. DRUG ABUSERS suffer medical problems from overdoses of drugs. Smokers get lung problems. Another cause of illnesses is pestilences, that affects the good and the bad alike. Some diseases do not discriminate. Especially contagious diseases. When BIRD FLU OR SWINE FLU COMES, almost everyone gets sick. Another cause of medical problems which probably BAD DIETS. Almost all of us are overweight, and suffer from MECHANICAL MEDICAL PROBLEMS like heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, and OTHER MECHANICAL ILLNESSES. Do like cars not kept in good shape that have to be taken to REPAIR SHOPS. Humans also have to be taken to REPAIR SHOPS (HOSPITALS). More Americans suffer from MECHANICAL DISEASES THAN FROM GERM DISEASES. Even in 3rd world countries like India, China and in Africa thy are picking up our bad habits. In USA more people die from MECHANICAL DISEASES THAN FROM INFECTIOUS DISEASES. Almost all of us are overweight (I plead guilty to this), and the Third World is catching up fast with us on this. Most people in America (including suffer from constipation (locked colon where garbage cant come out) including me and my family members. You probably have it too. Almost everyone does. My family takes Miralax, Fibercon, and ruby colored stool softeners. That helps us some. The drug that helps the most is PROBIOTIC FLORA (puts good germs back into body). That helps a lot but is very expensive. Some people take yogurt. The best way to avoid constipation is to limit or avoid foods that cause it. I never eat more that 2 slices of of pizza at one time an occasional party. If you eat 5 or 6 slices, you get into BIG TROUBLE. Pizza in large amounts in one of the worst health offenders. So is cigarette smoking. Alcohol is one of the biggest offenders too, and it can get you killed in a car wreck. Drug abuse can damage your brain and expose you to demonic hallucinations, and exposing you to demonic terrorist attacks. Most of our diseases whether mechanical diseases or germ diseases are caused directly by our bad habits. And the Third World is catching up with us on this. If you and I want to get rid our our health problems, we all need to rid of our bad habits. Most of the food in grocery stores is highly refined and has almost no nutritional value. Pot pies do not help you very much. Colas are among the worst offenders. Fresh produce and frozen veggies can help a lot. That is why my family uses frozen veggies with a few little pieces of chicken added. Stir frys cooked in water. With God’s help you can slowly turn your health around. It will take time, but if you start now, you can gradually turn your health around with God’s help. Unfortunately the food industry is dominated by corporate giants. Genetically modified foods is destroying the health of large populations. Yes God heals, but for most people healing does not come in a flash, but comes slowly over a period of several months, but it does come eventually. One of the signs of the times that Jesus spoke of in Olivet Discourse is that there would be MORE AND MORE DISEASES in the last days affecting even the saints too. So you and I will affected by this too. Our only real relief wil come at the Rapture, when the Lord gives us new NEW BODIES. The fragile bodies that we have now are only going to get worse and worse. But we can do something to slow this down. Another thing that damages bodeie is the increase in terror attacks. If you were in Boston at the Marathon you got shot at by the pices from the POT BOMBS. More that 260 were injured. Lots of damages to bodies. Natural disasters too like tornadoes.
What do you think, Joe?
Sincerely,
Keith Black
Jean Hynes
I believe that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” The Bible tells us this.
Deut. Chapter 28 – disease and sickness were part of the curse
Galatians 3:13 – Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law
How much plainer can it be? God’s Word has not changed. People have.
Blessings,