Sermon Archives (October 21, 2001):

Is Healing for You? – Part  2

(John 1:1-2)  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”   And in verse 14, John’s Gospel reads, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”  And this Word, what did he do as he dwelt among us in the flesh.  (Acts 10:38)  He “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”  Jesus healed.   But what of us.  Is healing for us today.   (Hebrews 13:8)   “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. “

Beloved let us bow our heads.  Father, let every believer hear this message today and the world as well.  Help us to understand the cause of disease, and whether healing is for us today.   Teach us Father.  And all God’s people said, “Amen”.

This is the second in a series of teaching on the causes of sickness, and the availability of healing.  What causes sickness?   What causes disease?   Conversely is healing for all, or was it just for those people who were fortunate enough to come in contact with Jesus physically two thousand years ago?  Sickness and disease walks this planet.  If that’s the plan then it appears to be a Hell of a plan.  Brethren, we have a right to know the answers to these questions;  not my opinion, not your opinion, or any other, but let us ask the God of this Universe. 

Do we have a healing Jesus, yesterday, today, and forever.   What about yesterday.   If Jesus and God heals, didn’t God afflict Job?   Didn’t God test Job?   And if God afflicted Job, and tested Job, then how could Jesus and the Father be the Lord of Healing, but rather won’t they be the God of affliction and testing?

Maybe we should take a look at this story of Job and examine what really happened.   The sons of God had come to God, and Satan was in their midst.  God asked, “What have you been up to Satan?”   To paraphrase the story, and Satan answered, “I’ve been walking to and frow upon the earth.”   God asked, “Did you see my servant Job.  What do you make of him?”  Satan replied,  “Oh yes, Job’s your servant but that’s only because you’ve placed a hedge around him so I can’t get to him.  Were you to pull the hedge down, I would make him curse your face.” 

Satan was trying to convince God to pull down the hedge, to stop protecting Job.  Here was God’s reply in (Job 1:12),  “Behold”  … in other words look and see  “all that he has is in your power.”   God was telling Satan, there was no hedge;  that there had never been a hedge;  that Job was in Satan’s world, and that Job was therefore vulnerable to Satan’s “power.”   Satan was giving excuses why Job had been a Godly man, claiming God did it.   God was correcting Satan.   God tells Satan, “No, there’s no hedge.”

Who then afflicted Job?  Was it God?  No, the scripture tells us that Job was under the power of Satan’s world.   Satan decided to afflict Job, just like God permitted Adam to sin.   Did God want Adam to sin?  No, God said to Adam not to sin.   But God gave to his creations both Adam and Satan free moral agency.   They, not God, decided to sin.   And here we see Satan deciding to afflict Job, not God deciding to afflict Job.    God does not create puppets, but rather he creates free agents and then allows those free agents – whether spirit beings or human flesh - to decide their own future.

Did Job understand that Satan had afflicted him?   Now afflicted, here is Job’s response, (Job 1:21)  "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there.  The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;  blessed be the name of the LORD."   Did Job blame Satan?  No!   Just like most on this planet, we forget about Satan, and we and Job blamed God.  “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.”   Job  blamed God.

Is Job believing God.   No,  Job is at this point in unbelief.   Job has bought Satan’s lie.   Peter warns us (I Peter 5:8)   “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”   Job was being devoured by Satan, not by God.

Christ tells us of the power of Faith.  (Mark 11:23) “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says.”

Words are power, and what comes out of your mouth has power.   God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.”  God creates by His word alone, so whether you know it or not when you speak you create as well.  What then did Job say,  (Job 3:25) “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened.”   Did Job believe there was a hedge about him?   No, he feared destruction, not the certainty of God’s protection, and by the power of his own belief destruction came upon him.

The trials of Job did not last his entire lifetime.   Scholars who have studied the book of Job have determined that Job’s trials, about 42 chapters, lasted for about nine months.  Reading all of it, Job didn’t invest much time in seeking the healing of God.   But then there comes a point, where Job returns to faith.  (Job 42:10) reads in the original King James, ”And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.”   Does this mean, God placed Job into captivity?  No, Satan had placed Job into captivity.   God in turning Job’s captivity, was releasing Job from Satan’s captivity.

When Job stopped accusing God, like we accuse God, when he turned to him as a Father, as we should turn to him as a Father, God then blessed Job as he will with us with twice as much as before Satan attacked him.