Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 271 - What Does the Bible Teach About Healing?

Transcript

Ep. 271 - What Does the Bible Teach About Healing? · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Jerry Bridges put it well when it comes to faith in healing.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: To say I have faith that God will heal is presumptuous, since we do not know the mind of God.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: But to say God is able to heal is to exercise faith.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Sometimes, friends, things in life change, sometimes for the better, other times for the worse.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Or is it worst?
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: No, I think worse.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: It's worserism.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And sometimes, friends, even holy things become unholy.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Ray, tell us about your once holy bed, now your unholy.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Or should?
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I say partially unholy bed.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: What happened?
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just strange.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Tell the people Ray.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, about two weeks ago I went to get out of bed and my hip was kind of wrecked and I thought I can't even walk and for about a whole day I just sat.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: A whole.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a whole day.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: I actually couldn't sleep in bed.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: I went downstairs and slept on the couch you know, on my lazy boy because it was so painful, and I thought well, that's it.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: I'm in a wheelchair being pulled by a couple of great Danes both wearing sunglasses, of course.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: You have to admit, Ray, though that thought kind of excited you, Great Danes yeah.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: Oh, great Danes pulling a wheelchair, revis wearing sunglasses, and seriously, I just thought this is one of those operations you have to have because I could feel the bone against bone.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: You know that, yeah, and it's like three months in bed.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: I'll go mentally insane, I can't do anything.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: And then so I had a thought, which sometimes happens.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: I thought I'm going to fill in the hole because it was so painful.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: That's what caused it, I think.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And so I got the hole that I'd saved from under the bed.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: What do you call a part of a hole?
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I took the hole.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: What do?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: you even call that Donut hole.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I took the inner hole, out of the hole, put it under the bed it's been under there for years and I sliced about an inch and a half from the top and put it back in.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: And I was right the next day, so you re I just got to say something.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: I actually had the best night's sleep I've had for years.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: So basically, you destroyed your back with your holy bed.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: No, I destroyed my hip with my holy bed.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Not my back.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: It was perfect, oh your back's fine.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Back was fine, Just the hip goes.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: How many years were you sleeping in your holy bed?
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: About five years sleeping in the holy bed.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: So hold on, so you have a hole in your bed.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: Hang on.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: Should we say what the hole in the bed is?
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Oscar, please tell the people.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: For those that are listening for the first time, it's hard to believe.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Ray had a pain in his back.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: Spond pain in his back and he spondylolisthesis, which is cause I can actually you love saying that word yeah, and, and I had it since I'm about 20 years old which is a weakness in the back, which apparently three millions of three million americans have spondylolisthesis and it and I figured one day it was caused by the fact that there was pressure on my spine when I was lying in the bed.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: So I cut a hole in the bed about eight inches deep by about a diameter of about 14 inches, with a big knife.
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: 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.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: 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.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: see, it reminds me of one of those medication commercials where they go on for like two minutes on the side effects.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It may cause paralysis, hip problems and head amputation.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: So my hip's right and my back's right, so I've found a medium of the hole depth in the bed yeah, inch and a half.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Of the whole depth in the bed yeah, an inch and a half.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Until your arms no longer work.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: That's next Ray.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So, friends, please don't take Ray's advice on your bed habits, comfort medicals yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what happens to people.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Ray, are you ever going to change this bed?
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: We change the sheets every six months or so but, you know every few years.
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: No, no, I wouldn't sleep in another bed.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: This is it actually when I've traveled in years, years.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: 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?
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: was it hard for you to readjust to not sleeping in such a deep hole?
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: I can't believe it was instantly when I got a hotel lie in their bed.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: It was instant pain, couldn't walk I would love to hear you ask, like the front register person do you guys have any beds with holes in them?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Like in all seriousness, no, but Ray, now that you've kind of put most of the hole back, I don't even know how to describe it.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: It's not the whole hole.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: You re-holed the hole.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: You re-holed the hole, not the whole hole.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: it's a partial, but did it take you?
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I mean that's an adjustment.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Was that a bit of an adjustment?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: No, it's just straight into.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: That was fine, that's right, yeah, his bed's going to look like Swiss cheese by the time he's done with it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Holes for his feet, holes for his hand.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Ray, you're a bizarre human being.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you All right, friends, enough bed stuff.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Here's another one of your cool, classy comments.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: This, believe it or not, comes in the form of a card that was sent to us with a wonderful delivery of lovely almonds.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: This is from our dear friends.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: Do you pronounce the L in?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: almonds, almonds, almonds.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: This is from Jacob and Kat Kuyper, ray, oscar, mark and Easy.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: What an encouragement and joy the ministry has been to our family.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: We have been greatly blessed by the podcast and Living Waters resources.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: May the Lord continue to bless the ministry and grow you men more and more in Christlikeness.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Jacob and Catherine, or Cat Kuyper and Chloe, may and Ariel they're kids and they sent us bags and bags of almonds.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: They're actually farmers here in California and we've met them at the Shepherds Conference.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I know, mark, and I have at least.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: We didn't end up connecting, but he sent them and they were delicious.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: Do they have chocolate coated almonds?
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Can they grow them?
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I'm sure someone's going to try.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: I'm milking mine right now milking your almonds.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: I have some almond milk from it.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Wait, are you serious?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: no, would not surprise me, oscar.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: They do get almond uh milk.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: You soak it from all.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: You soak it in water.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: How you do it?
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can do it.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: You can do it at home.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, mark, you seem like an almond milk kind of a drinker I drink a lot of almond milk Smoothies.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: right, that's the liquid choice for smoothies.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Does it taste like milk at all?
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I've never tasted it by itself, but boy, I've had gallons and gallons of it.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: I do the same thing for my smoothies.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with regular milk?
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Milk is like the perfect liquid.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: If you're like a baby cow, that's a cow.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: Or a baby almond.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a little lower in fat and I don't know it gives it a smoother texture, I think.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's thicker.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like if you make a protein shake with milk, it's like a milkshake, but if you make it with almond milk, it's just, it's easier to consume.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: You chew it.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, you chew it.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: You chew it down, that's right.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, anyway, thank you guys so much, and they sent us a picture of them holding a bunch of our track and they got a hat on.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, living Waters hat.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: That's right, they are godly people.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Love the Lord.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, and a plug, another plug, if you guys remember our dear friends, the Moors, who sent us all that amazing stuff.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: You guys remember I mentioned on the podcast the painting in my office with Jesus walking on water and how I said.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: You know, I was going to put the verse that comes from that scene Lord save me.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: But we didn't do it.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I get a little package in the middle.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I open it and it's a little plaque that says Lord, save me in the verse Really.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Unbelievably it fit right between the canvas and the channel on the frame perfectly.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I didn't have to stick it on or anything.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: It looks good too.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: It's the right color.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: It looks amazing, it matches it.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: It really, really touched me.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: Solid gold.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, solid gold.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you, franz, that was a really big blessing.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: All right, franz, time for another radically revolutionary resource Anyone but Me.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: 10 Ways to Overcome your Fears and Be Prepared to Share the Gospel Ray.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Why do you still have fears?
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, because I'm human.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: It's hard to explain, but I'm human.
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we all want to say here I am.
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: Lord, send him Anyone else but me, and that's what that book's about.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Sending other people.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I thought it was a book about Rachel getting engaged easy.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: Anyone but me.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: You're going to pay.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: You're going to pay for that one, yeah, but, ray, I love the fact that you challenge people on things that are common to all of us, because I think there is that element where, because we realize, oh, everybody struggles with this, we can kind of comfort ourselves in that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just the firefighter still fights fires, even though he's fearful.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: A fearful firefighter fighting fires.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Was that on the spot?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: It was on the spot.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: Wow, impressive Good alliteration A fat, fearful firefighter A fat fearful firefighter, that's good, I'm flabbergasted.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: All that fearful firefighter, that's good, I'm flabbergasted.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: All right, friends, and don't forget Living Waters Mug and the Evidence Study Bible.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: All that Living Waters Mug, all right.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: Oh, I thought it was hearing.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, I heard that wrong.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, heal your hearing.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: You know it is interesting.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: You know when you think about heal your hearing, you know it is interesting, you know, when you think about how the Lord and we'll talk, I'm sure, more about this but how the Lord has provided healing in a sense through natural means.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I just thought of that when I thought about hearing.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have ever seen those videos where you'll have someone who is hearing for the first time.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Oh man, those get me every time.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I mean even thinking about it.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Right, you get the chills, like someone hearing their child's voice or their mom or their dad's voice for the first time.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: The little two-year-old boy that hears his mom for the first time and he starts crying.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: And they just start bawling and it's like you know, and it's a wonderful thing.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: You can imagine what it would have been like in the time of Christ when people were actually healed, or Lazarus raised from the dead, even better.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, fathom that.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think Lazarus was happy about that.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: What Snatched out of eternity.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: He'd been woken up.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when he's reading.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: Psalm.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: First of all, that man's voice is healed.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, ah, when he's reading Psalm, it was just very beautiful.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: He was reading a Psalm and it was dealing with healing, and in the course of quoting that Psalm, his voice comes back.
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: And it was unbearable to listen to.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's worse than Robert Kennedy's voice at the moment.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And he heals all of our diseases.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: And as he's saying that, mark, I think, right his voice and then you hear the congregation start to wail, people start to cry.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: I'm feeling it myself.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I wish we could play it right now.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: I've never seen this clip.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: No, it's not seen, it's heard.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, you hear it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, ray had that Comfort's Favorites tape.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: It was very professionally produced yeah.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: All right, friends.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Now I have another one.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: That's when I discovered what Ray was all about.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I'm like this is Ray.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: This guy doesn't care, just do it, get it out there.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I don't care, here's my home recorder, my favorite.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: On that thing, though, ray was on the backside.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: The whole yawn-ese, oh one hour of pure, non-stop, genuine yawns.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Where did you get?
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: those oh television programs have like 10 minutes of yawns they can play.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: I just looped it 10 minutes of yawns.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: What do you mean?
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: Well, they've got there's a whole long playing record.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: That's what they used to have of all different sounds.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: And they have yawning.
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they had yawning on it, so I ripped it off.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: You took it and looped away.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Good thing we don't make it up anymore, I fell asleep doing it, but it was like yawn after yawn.
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Because yawning is contagious.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: You're just trying to get people to yawn.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: No, it's the insomniac stream.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: If you can't sleep, listen to these yawns for an hour and I'll put you up.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Just talking about it makes you want to yawn Even the word yawn makes me want to go to sleep, yawn.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Yawn, yeah.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: So anyway, I had a bunch of interesting things on there, but that was one of them and and it was just beautiful to behold, I think it was a sovereign moment in time where god and again it wasn't like this guy just had some, you know, bronchitis or whatever you call it or what.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: What's that voice loss thing?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: it's laryngitis laryngitis no larry.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: He had like a permanent condition, yeah, where all the experts told him your vocal cords are damaged.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: It's like losing a limb, in a sense.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: And he was a preacher and people in his congregation listened to him, which was almost unbearable and he would preach like this Really.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And you need to know.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll have to find it for you.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to hear it and Oscar, his voice came back and afterward he did a recording where he talked about it.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: He did a recording where he talked about it.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: He had the most beautiful, clear voice.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: He started crying when he was being healed.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was amazing, dwayne.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: Miller.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: That's it, dwayne Miller, and I actually interviewed him.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: No, he interviewed me for an hour about a year after that.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, really yeah years ago.
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: He's very sound biblically.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and his voice, just I mean it was amazing and it was amazing and it just happened right in the midst of it.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And again he persisted.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: For years he would preach and preach and I mean it was hard to listen to him.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: But man, the Lord, just I'll send you a link.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, please do.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I want to hear it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe we can put it in the description.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Mark too, that's a good idea, because people are going to be really annoyed.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so anyway.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Horrible, oscar, what do you think of that?
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've been a leader in a church, you've ministered the gospel to people.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Do you see that as an element of disillusionment for a lot of people?
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: 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?
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, it's a stain on our witness to the culture.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: I remember hearing one story of a single mom and a son son's in a wheelchair.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: They live in Florida and they, like she, quit her job.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: And this family tells the story about selling everything they have heading out there because they had, they didn't have very much money.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: They get there, she, she rolls them up on the wheelchair and they have a security guard standing between him and the stage.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: And the security guard says if you want to get on stage, I need you to stand up and he goes.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: Well, I can't like, I'm in a wheelchair, I can't stand up, he goes.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: If you can't stand up, I can't let you up there.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: And they got turned away.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: He needed, like the security guard was like this filter.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Can you at least stand up for me, because then it has this illusion.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Look, this person is healed.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: I saw something years ago that made me sickened me.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Let me tell you about it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: I was a brand new Christian.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: We had a guy with a healing ministry at our local church and he had the leg lengthening ministry.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's right, you heard of that, yeah, yeah.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: I was going to get both of my legs done.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: We should get that done for you, right.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: But I went up there because something was happening.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: Everyone was saying, whoa, something's happening, their leg is lengthening.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: And then I heard the preacher that was praying for a person say Gently, Jesus, what?
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: And I thought what are you talking about?
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: This is the creator of the universe and you're one man saying to Jesus be gentle, don't overdo it.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: 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.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: You know they're so publicized, as Oscar was saying.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's again, it's become a show.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think what happens it's always these extremes, right.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So you've got these charlatans that are trying to make a buck off people or build an audience or gain power or whatever, and so you know you have that.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: But then, on the other hand, you have those that, as a reaction to that, basically just say no, there's no more healing.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, healing was very prominent within scripture.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: 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,.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't just Jesus doing it.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Side note how would you like me named Dorcas?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I know I always thought about that Dorcas.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I think her real name was Tabitha too and they had to bring up Dorcas.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: But you know Eutychus restored to life, publius' father healed on the island.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So you have examples of that sort of thing.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: But and I think you know Yeezy, I think that gets to like.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: Well, how do we approach healing today?
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: How do we approach prayer?
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: Right Like, a large crowd gathers at Jesus after he heals Peter's mother-in-law.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: And what does Jesus say?
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: He says let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: 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?
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: I think it's important to recognize that Jesus healed because he's compassionate, because he knows our needs.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: I love the way the theologian Dennis Nineham says it.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: He says there are more in miracles than their outward appearance.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: They are, to use the fourth evangelist words, signs of the power of God.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: According to Mark, the miracles are like the parables they are meant to understand something.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: And then Paul Carter says miracles are like parables.
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: They contain a much deeper meaning for all those who are willing to lean in and learn from them.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's good.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think, ray, sometimes that's what's lost is people looking and saying you know why was it that Jesus did certain things?
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I love what you highlighted, oscar, that some of that is glimmers too, not just of who he is, but what's to come too, ultimately eternally.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: But, ray, one of the things that we've seen, you mentioned the leg lengthening thing.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: There have been guys that go out and that's their primary thing.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: You don't even hear them preach the gospel.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: No, you take me back to a time many years ago when I took my mom, who wasn't a Christian, to hear a respected Bible teacher and I really appreciated his teaching.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: And when we got there all he did was lengthen legs and it just made me feel sick.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: 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.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Easy had his leg lengthened one time.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Where were we?
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: We were in Texas.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Was it North Texas?
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: It was just a chiropractor doing his thing and he adjusted you and the next thing you know, your leg was lengthened.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the kind of lengthening I welcome, so what's his name?
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: He has a cue for one deal.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: That's the kind of lengthening I welcome.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: So what's his name?
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: He has a cue for one deal.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Anyway, what I was heading up for is yeah, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to healing.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: There is the real thing and I don't know how sensationists deal with the whole thing.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: I've got a friend and you guys know him.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: He's 16 years old, went to church and had an aneurysm, remember Brandon?
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: Yes, texas went and visited him and he became paralyzed from the neck down and years ago he said would you pray for me?
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: Pray that God will give me a miracle.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Do you think God wants to heal me?
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: And I said, of course I'm going to pray for you.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: So every night I pray.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: I didn't say to him sorry, I don't believe God heals.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: Deal with it Now.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: 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.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: 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.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Suddenly, and the doctors don't know why.
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: You know I can believe for that.
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: You know maybe he's not going to walk up into cartwheels straight away, but yeah, God heals and we've just got to believe for it.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: A Christian brother, an elderly Christian brother, told me something as a new Christian that I've always remembered.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: He said I had a bad back really bad.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: He says I went up for healing, for the laying on of hands of the elders to pray the prayer of faith.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: He said 38 times he elders and pray the prayer of faith.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: He said 38 times.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: 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.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: Just pray the prayer of faith and trust God.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Ray, I like the fact that you alluded to what James 5, 14 to 15 says.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: If is anyone among you sick, 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.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: And we know the instance with Paul.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Right, paul prayed three times that that thorn in the flesh would be removed from him.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: A new doctrine.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Good odds.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: Start a church on that, wouldn't that?
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: be funny A meatball.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Look at this big thorn.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: It was in my flesh and there's books being written about it.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: You guys all thought it was something else, right?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I think that both continuationists and cessationists alike all believe that God can heal.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, it's just a matter of is there a gift of healing?
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Does somebody have the ability to go in the ICU unit and just start performing miracles left and right?
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so everybody alike.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I liked this quote from JC Ryle that I read.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: He said health is a good thing, but sickness is far better if it leads us to God.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Amen, right, so we wanna be healed, we pray for healing and God ultimately.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good, mark, and I'm glad you alluded to that.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: You know in terms of what cessationists and continuationists you know believe, and we have friends on both sides of the aisle that listen to the podcast here, and so you know we recognize that there is within the continuationist world, hyper charismania where you have people that abuse.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: You know different gifts and again I'm speaking to those that believe that the sign gifts they're called are still for today.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: There are those that are sober in their understanding of these things and they're tempered in the way that they apply these things.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: That's one of the views on that verse.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: I prayed for a guy in a wheelchair.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: After I witnessed to him at Huntington Beach recently, I remember I said you're going to think about what he talked about.
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: He says, yeah, but why won't God heal me?
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: Because I'm paralyzed.
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: And I said you're going to think about what we talked about.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: He says yeah, but why won't God heal me?
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: Because I'm paralyzed.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: And I said do you want me to pray with you?
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: And he said yeah.
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: So we prayed together and he didn't walk up and leap and praise God, but who knows, god could heal him.
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And I think real quick, if I can just say this, and I think this goes back to what I was talking about with Paul right, god said to Paul my grace is sufficient for you, and I think that needs to be the baseline for every believer Look, god's grace is sufficient.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Now, this is the confidence that we have in him that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, I must not believe enough.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm not here.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesus often would heal people that didn't have faith.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And we hear from prosperity preachers today that say you need to have faith to believe.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: But the paralytic who was lowered through the roof did not have faith.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: It was the faith of the friends that brought their friend to Jesus and by any means imaginable.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the opposite is true too, which is that he actually heals in spite of unbelief.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Mark 6,.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: It says "'A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, "'and among his relatives and in his own household'".
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: In other words, their unbelief.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: The reason why God didn't do, jesus didn't do a mighty work there is because of the unbelief.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: Yet he still healed.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: And and you know, the creator of the cosmos looks at this dad and is like do you believe?
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: And the dad's answer is I believe, but help me with my unbelief.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: He's confessing his unbelief to the creator of the cosmos.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: But he shows him compassion and heals his son in that moment.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: It's not because that person doesn't have enough belief.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: It's not because they didn't pray enough, they didn't tithe enough, they didn't go to church enough.
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: Because in the midst of your suffering, god is sanctifying you.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: He means to leave you with that, to draw you closer to him.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Sometimes our suffering is an act of grace that God is giving us so that we can depend more on who he is.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we see that also in John, chapter nine, with the man born blind and the question was asked who sinned?
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Was it this man, was it his parents?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: And it was no, but that the works of God, that the glory of God might be revealed.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: You know, for such a time as this he was like that and perhaps you know, within our infirmities.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Right, they all had a valid excuse why they were not the person for the job.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: 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.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: And the mystery of why God doesn't heal immediately or doesn't heal isn't confined just to that realm In prayer itself.
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: It's a mystery, like God let James be killed by a sword, but he released Peter from prison in a miracle.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: So what's the story there?
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: Or, stephen stoned to death and I'm sure they prayed, you know God, help them, those that were standing around.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: But God allowed that because his ways are infinitely far above our ways.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Scripture talks about and we've discussed it before how some suffer according to the will of God, and I think that the important overarching principle that every Christian needs to grasp is number one.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: We know why suffering and sickness exist.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: We know that, even as scripture talks about those who did not partake of the Lord's supper appropriately.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Some were sick and some even died.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: And we know again that God could use physical infirmity as a form of discipline.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: So why do you think Paul left Trophimus sick at Milenum?
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: You know that verse.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so, Paul, you know handkerchiefs were given to him.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: Was that Paul?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then he had a powerful prayer ministry.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: We could pray for people and they were healed and he left Trophimus sick at Miletum.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I made you laugh, Austin.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Again, that's a good point.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: And why did Paul tell Timothy to drink a little wine for his infirmities, right?
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Why didn't he just heal him?
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously he's an apostle.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: He had the ability I used to do that when I was a kid, what Drink wine for my infirmities.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: When you were a kid, yes, I was only about 10.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: When my aunt took me fishing on their boat and it got rocky, she would give me brandy to settle my stomach and it took away seasickness.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: Really it really did work and it felt good.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: You know, you actually bring up an interesting point though.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: I see a new brand Raise Brandy.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: It was actually no, it was rum and raspberry.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: I think it was.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was rum and raspberry, that's right.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: It had a really good taste and it did sit on your stomach.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: This is not an endorsement no rum is a wine.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: This is going to progress.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Actually, it was vodka.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: I got a bottle of whiskey here.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I took my family out to a restaurant recently and I had ordered a dessert and she asked if I wanted this caramel sauce to go over the top.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I went yeah, sure, that sounds great.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Put the sauce over it and I ate it and I go.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: This is really good.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: The kids are all eating it and Laura takes a tissue.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I think that's like alcohol.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: And then, when the bill came, it was like $10 just for that caramel sauce.
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: It would have had rum in it.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: Did you drive home or not?
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: You know, you bring up a really good point, though, which is that that wine was used for medicinal purposes, which is.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: There's another extreme here, though, which is that that wine was used for medicinal purposes, which is there's another extreme here.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: There's the extreme that some people will be like.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: I am totally averse to modern medicine because I just need to trust that God is going to heal this infirmity.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: But modern medicine itself is an act of grace.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: I recently had surgery on my foot.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: If it wasn't for that, it would start to cause knee pain and then hip pain, and et cetera, et cetera.
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: Oh, get a hole in your bed.
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: Get a hole in your bed, right.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Speaking of modern medicine, raise modern medicine I don't mean raise modern medicine, but the point here is that God, through common grace, has given us modern medicine so that we can experience a form of healing that can be glorifying to the Lord.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Jesus himself said that right, the sick are in need of a physician.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and the merry heart does good like a medicine.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oscar, I'm really glad you use that term common grace but I'm sure there's some of our listeners that are hearing that for the first time, thinking what does that mean?
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Explain that a little bit, if you would.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's different forms in which God shows grace.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: The most common form that we understand, that we think of, is God's saving grace.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: That he does through the blood of Jesus Christ.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: A non-believer has a child and loves that child.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: We know that children are a gift from the Lord.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: That child is a gift to that non-believer.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: That is God's common grace.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: When we go to a restaurant, we order a great steak that's not overcooked.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Medium well.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: It hits our taste buds and we salivate and we enjoy it.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: That is God's common grace to the world.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: He's showering us with grace, both believer and non believer.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: And so you know beauty, when it comes to the form of art, is God's common grace to the world.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Goodness, when it comes to morals and ethics is God's common grace to the world.
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: Goodness, when it comes to morals and ethics is God's common grace to the world.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: And then truth is God's common grace to the world.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good, and I mean on that note, really in a sense God is healing people all the time through common grace.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: That's good, right.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, we think about modern technology.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: We were talking to a friend recently whose wife had hip surgery and Ray and I were astounded.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: She went in, had hip surgery in an hour and it was outpatient.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: It's crazy.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: After an hour she got in the car, went back home and was walking around Hippy.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Speaking of health, I was thinking this morning I would have two questions for Methuselah what did you eat and did you bother to work out?
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: That's a good question.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I was reading some old today, and, yeah, just reading about people from back in the 1700s talking about the value of exercise and how good it was and how they had infirmities but how exercise helped them.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I think Jerry Bridges put it well when it comes to faith in healing.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: To say I have faith that God will heal is presumptuous, since we do not know the mind of God.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: But to say God is able to heal is presumptuous, since we do not know the mind of God.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: But to say God is able to heal is to exercise faith, and I love that, ray, and what you were speaking about before.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: Earlier I mentioned that miracles through the scriptures are like parables, and I want to circle back to that real quick because it does.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: It tells us a couple of things about who Jesus is.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: It also shows us that Jesus is the promised snake crusher that we've been waiting for All throughout the Old Testament.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: There's this promise that we see in Genesis that he's going to send somebody that's going to reverse the curse.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: It's an inauguration of something new.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: The last plague is God taking the firstborn.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: The last miracle that we see Jesus perform in John's gospel is him raising the firstborn Lazarus from the dead.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: He's reversing the curse.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: The promise of the gospel is that one day we will all be healed.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: Jesus says that every tear will be wiped away, that we will have new bodies.
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: And what he does, what he does, is amazing, because Jesus is God, is not just the God who stands over and above suffering.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: He is the one who has stepped in to suffering.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Why would God do that?
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: 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.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: God has done something about your suffering.
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: So, christian, hold fast hope.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I think a good place to end is on God's word, which we've cited here and there, but to get the fullness of it Revelation 21, beginning in verse three.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: God himself will be with them and be their God, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away, and oh, what a glorious day.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: That will be Our ultimate healing.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: That is God's promise, and we can hold onto that, friends.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: 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.
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: His will can be done.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: All right, friends.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: That's the end of this one.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: We hope you've been encouraged and inspired.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Don't forget Ray's book, anyone but Me.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: 10 Ways to Overcome your Fears and Be Prepared to Share the Gospel, living Waters Mug, the Evidence Study Bible, all at livingwaterscom.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters Podcast, the one podcast you can't wait.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Click, click to turn off.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: That's the wrong place.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know, I know.