Healing

Matthew 8:16, 17 "... and He cast out the spirits with His Word, and healed all that were sick;  That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses."

The most obvious purpose of healing is making the sick well, but healing and deliverance serve purposes other than just making people whole.  

-Healing demonstrates that God is gracious, good, merciful, and compassionate.

Psalms 145:8, 9 "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy.  The Lord is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works."

Mark 1:41 "And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth His hand and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean."
 
-Healing results in praise and glory to God.

Matthew 15:30, 31 "And great multitudes came unto Him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and He healed them: Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see; and they glorified the God of Israel."

Acts 4:21 "...for all men glorified God for that which was done. 

-Healing confirms Jesus as Savior and Messiah.

Read Matthew 8:14-17 in your Bible.  The healings recorded in Matthew 8:14-17 confirm these words of the prophet about Jesus: 

Verse 17 "...Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." 

Healing and deliverance confirm Jesus is Savior.  The healing and forgiving of sins of a lame man confirmed Jesus was Savior as well as Healer in Luke 5:18-26.

John 10:37, 38 "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.  But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in Him."

John 20:30, 31TLB "Jesus' disciples saw Him do many other miracles besides the ones told about in this book, but these are recorded so that you will believe that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing in Him you will have life.   

-Healing verifies the message and the messenger.

Read the story of the healing of the young man in 1 Kings 17. When this boy was healed, his mother said to the prophet Elijah in Verse 24:

"Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in thy mouth is truth." 

This healing verified both the message and the messenger.

Acts 14:3 "As God works with you in signs and wonders of healing and deliverance, the truth of His Word is verified:  Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of His grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands."

The Bible records that after one great healing miracle, the spiritual and political leaders "saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus"  in Acts 4:13.

-Healing encourages receptivity to the gospel.

It is easy to tell people about the Gospel after they have been healed.  There are several examples of this in the book of Acts.  Healing opened the door for the message of salvation, the infilling of the Holy Ghost, and church growth. See Acts 2:42-47 and 5:14 for examples of this fact. 

Although healing encourages receptivity to the Gospel, always remember that it does not replace the preaching of the Gospel of salvation. The Word must be taught along with the demonstration of power in order to bring people into right relationship with God.  It is the Word that creates faith for salvation, healing, and deliverance. Healing is a powerful tool of evangelism.

-Healing establishes the Kingdome of God.

The healings and deliverances done by Jesus and His disciples were the first phase of establishing the Kingdom of God:

Luke 10:9 "And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."  

Matthew 12:28 "But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you."

As you pray for healing, remember that the Kingdom is not yet in its fullness.  In the fullness of the Kingdom there will be complete absence of disease and death. The body, as well as the soul, is not redeemed now as it will be in the fullness of the Kingdom.  You are saved from the penalty of sin in the past and can be saved from its power in the present.  In the future, you will be saved from sin's presence.  The same is true of sickness. Sickness is not a penalty for your past sins.  You can be redeemed from its power in the present, but not from its presence until eternity.

-Healing demonstrates judgement on our enemy.

When you lay hands on the sick you are declaring that the prince of this world has been judged and the power of sickness and disease has been destroyed as in John 16:11.  Remember that it is the power of sickness that is destroyed, not its presence.  You will only be redeemed from its presence when you come into the fullness of the Kingdom of God.


-Healing raises up spiritual champions.

Healing has been used to raise up great spiritual leaders.  Paul was called to be an apostle of the Gospel at the time of his healing in Acts 9.

-Healing brings great joy.

Acts 8:5-25 tells how great joy came to individuals and communities where healing and deliverance was ministered.
 

Don't Hang Up Your Harp (Part 6)

I Willows grow where there is water. It was not a desert place, but it was a place they could survive. They could have been content, but it just wasn't what they were used to. It was a strange place, a different place, a new place yet the children of Israel said in their hearts, "It's not our place."

When they were asked to sing the Lord's song they replied, "How can we sing in a strange land?” The desire, the want to, the craving to praise the Lord had been relegated to the branches of the willow trees.

-Sometimes we don't like where we are.
I remember walking into one of my last assignments before I retired and when I walked in the sanctuary God spoke to me and said, "This isn't where you're supposed to be." I thought to myself, "Then why'd you let me come here?" I never heard back from the Lord. Sometimes the surroundings are different. You think you're doing right, but all of a sudden you realize you've made the wrong decision. I have come to realize that in all things God has a purpose even when we think we're doing right and it turns out to be wrong. Yet, even though we may be in the wrong place at the wrong time we cannot afford to just give up and walk away.

-Sometimes we don't like what has happened to us.

Have you ever said, "I don't know why this is happening to me?" I'll guarantee you the children of Israel said the same sing. Many other personalities in the Bible would agree with you. The question, "Why?", will always be on our minds. Remember it rains on the just and the unjust. 

-Sometimes we lose our song and we refuse to sing.

Some of you reading this right now for a great part of your life you have been a worshipper, a praiser, one who glorified God with your hands, your feet, your mouth,  but you have stopped.  You have hung your harp in the willow trees because of things surrounding you that are unpleasant and discouraging.

Maybe you've lost your job.

Maybe something has gone wrong at home.

Maybe your health has declined

Maybe you just don't feel at ease anywhere.

Maybe you feel like you are in a strange place.

You've let the enemy rob you of your song and your harp of praise is hung in the willow trees of this world. But it's not your song or just some good melody. It's also not just a music chart with a good rhythm or beat. It is the Lord's song and we must sing it wherever we are and in whatever circumstance we are in.

If it were my song I could choose whether I would sing or not.  I could hang my harp on the willow if I choose to, but it's HIS song so we must sing it. Whether you want to or not, whether you like it or not, or whether you feel like it or not-open your mouth and sing.

Don't Hang Up Your Harp (Part 5)

The challenge of singing the Lord's song in a strange land is not new. Many are faced with the dilemma of how to bring personal spirituality into the work place, without appearing to be overzealous. Others find it difficult to sing, to remain optimistic in the face of failures, setbacks, or loss. Some seem temperamentally predisposed to pessimism. Others permit sins to steal their joy, refusing to confess or forsake them. Instead they hang it up, putting their harps in storage, refusing to sing on the foreign soil of disappointment  and despair.

We feel the strangeness our nation today. Many have said that this is not the America we grew up in. Does it not seem like foreign soil to you when we hear about child abuse, weapons in schools, or gratuitous violence in our various forms of entertainment? Remember-this world is not our home, we are just passing thru it.

Israel should have sung. Yes, music and joy were far from their hearts. Yes, anger and a desire for revenge buffeted their spirits. Yes, God seemed so far away. But the strangeness of our circumstances is no excuse for hanging up our harps. Jesus left us an example of singing in the rain of suffering and even approaching death. Moreover, praise brings deliverance. Israel should have sung.

We can refuse to hang it up by making a commitment to three simple practices:

-First, we must refuse to use the unusual situations as an excuse.

Often we behave as if our trial is unique. But 1 Corinthians 10:31 reminds us that the tests we face are common to humanity. Others are traveling with us in the strange country of failure, frustration, and fear, and many of these saints have learned to sing in spite of struggle. We are, therefore, without excuse.


-Second, we should follow Jesus' example in the way He sang through the pain.

Jesus was a stranger in this world, leaving the chants of cherubims and the songs of seraphims to journey to this planet on a salvation mission. He was despised and rejected and abused and mistreated. Relatives and even His closest friends often misunderstood Him. Earth for Jesus was a strange land, but He refused to hang it up.
Only once in the New Testament in Matthew 26:30 is it recorded that Jesus sang. When did He sing?

a. He sang on the night in which He was betrayed.

b. He sang after washing the disciples' feet.

c. He sang as the shadow of a cross fell unmistakably across His pathway.

d. He sang as Judas hurried to betray Him. He sang at the end of His Last Supper.

e. He sang as He headed for the agonies in the Garden of Gethsemane and the hill called Calvary, the place of the skull.

f. He sang a hymn as His outward world was falling apart.

If Jesus could sing in the strange land of suffering, we have no excuse for hanging it up.

-Third, we should permit praise to bring deliverance. 

We confuse Satan when we sing God's song in a strange land, for our God inhabits our praise according to Psalm 22:3. The enemy expects us to respond to life's trials with complaints and exasperation, but praise brings us into God's presence. Refusing to hang it up brings Divine reinforcement.

Acts 16 reveals that Paul and Silas were incarcerated unfairly. They were beaten without the benefit of due process and jailed without being permitted to defend themselves. They traveled in the strange world of injustice. Yet instead of hanging it up, they began to sing and the other prisoners heard them. Their joyful singing so influenced heaven that the earth shook and their chains fell off, for praise brings deliverance.

Our lives are beset with dangers, toils, and snares, but we must refuse to hang it up. Our Savior promises to be with us even in a strange land. He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you'" in Hebrews 13. Jude 14 says He is able to keep us from falling . He has promised to supply every need of ours according to His unspeakable riches in Philippians 4. He has gone to prepare a place for us and promises to come again in John 14. Even in a strange land, that's some thing about which we can sing.

Practicing these three simple things can have a  liberating impact in your life.

Don't Hang Up Your Harps (Part 4)

You know it doesn’t take unfavorable conditions or hard persecution for some of us to hang our harp on the willow-just different surroundings.

Some people hang their harp up in the church parking lot on Sunday, and pick it back up on Wednesday. Some people hang it up long enough to go curse the neighbor out, but when the phone rings and it’s the Pastor, they grab that harp up. They say, "Oh, hi preacher, it's another day that the Lord hath made and I will rejoice and be glad in it." As soon as they hang up the phone they hang up their harp again.

The people in our text said, "Oh we couldn’t sing, we are too sad. How can we sing in a strange land?" Philippians 2:15 says we are placed in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and we are to shine as lights in the world. 

Young people may say, "Everything is different today. You don’t know what it’s like in school now. It’s hard to sing the songs of Zion out there." Older Christians might say, "Man, it used to be great. We sure used to have revival. We used to really have church, but things have changed." You’re right. Things have changed, but we can’t hang our harps on the willows because things have changed.

There is one that hasn’t changed-God. He has not changed. In the 1st chapter of Daniel, we read of a young man who never let unfavorable circumstances rule. He kept his faith in God. He never hanged up his harp, and praise God, his whole life had changed. He became the ruler over his circumstances. He had the opportunity to keep his mouth shut in Verse 5, his head down and go along with the flow. The king wasn’t threatening to cut off his head, but offering a life in the palace. Even though he had the opportunity, he would not defile himself with the king's meat.

Satan would like for all of us to just go along with the flow. He would like for us to eat of all the world has to offer. Yet Daniel 1:8 says Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank. As soon as he set his heart (verse 9), God started making a way for Daniel.

Yes, God will make a way, but first we must make a decision.

-We hanged our harps up and prayer was taken out of our schools, and witchcraft and the occult became the fastest growing religion in America.

-We hanged our harps up and homosexuality became an accepted life style. It is not only accepted, but ordained by some organizations to preach from the pulpit.

The Bible talks about people being born blind and people born crippled. I have never read in the Bible of anyone being a homosexual from birth. It is a spirit, and it is sin, but if we will get our harps back in our hands, we can see these ones delivered. Daniel set the direction of his affection. Colossians 3:2 says to set your affections on things above.

Maybe we should check the direction of our affection:

-Make sure our affection for our Savior has not been swallowed up by our concern for our lack of blessing or pressures of trials. 

-Make sure we aren’t spending too much time looking back at the old days. Don’t wait for some sweeping revival to come, and then we’ll get our harps down.
Some people spend their time looking back or waiting on something to come.

-Make sure our relationship with God is a now thing.
In John 11:21 Martha told Jesus, "If Thou hadst been here." Then in Verse 24 she said, "But I know he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Too many Christians are either looking back at the old days or waiting on the rapture. Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life." He was telling her it’s a now thing.

-Make sure you master your situations before they master you.

a. Daniel didn’t let his circumstances rule him, and he became ruler over his circumstances.

b. Paul and Silas never let the stocks of prison still their song of praise, and their praise broke the stocks, and loosed everyones bonds.

If you have come to your rivers of Babylon and sat down, it’s time to set the direction of your affection and to purpose in your heart whom you will serve. Set your affection on Jesus and you can have victory over your circumstances. There is a great promise in God’s Word for those who will set their affection on Him.

Don't Hang Up Your Harps (Part 3)

Jerusalem was destroyed and the Temple, robbed of all its precious things, lay in absolute ruins!  How could this be happening to God’s people?  How could it be happening to them? 

According to this unknown Psalmist they should:

-Curse their enemy! 

-Hate their oppressors!

-Deprive them of your music! 

-Sing for them no song! 

These men are beasts and monsters!  Hate them with an everlasting hatred! The curses of the Psalmist came because of putting hate before love and not realizing that a God of love was at work in disciplining His people

He could not see the hand of God in their defeat. He did not realize that God was preparing them to be stronger in their future.  It was their captivity that allowed some wonderful things to transpire in Babylon:

-In Babylon they would recognize that their God was indeed a Universal God, a God who was with them in Babylon as He was with them in Jerusalem. They would see He had not forsaken them. 

-In Babylon they would develop the Synagogue that became for them a place where the God of Judaism could be worshipped as surely as he could in their most precious Temple. they found God could be worshipped anywhere that He was welcomed.

-In Babylon, as in the Wilderness before that, they became truly the "people of God."             

Jesus loved His enemies.  He told us to love our enemies as well as to bless those who cursed us.  Then He said we ought to pray for them. The world teaches us to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made and whose skin is a different color. It's not easy to love your enemies, but with the help of God you can even love your those that despitefully use you.  This help from God only comes through prayer.  The Word says, “You have not because you ask not.”

Ask yourself these questions:

-Can I love those Edomites who laughed at me when I was down? 

-Can I love those family members who should have supported me in my time of sadness but did not?  

-Can I love those people who laughed at me and made sport of my misery? 

No, I cannot in my own strength; but I can keep praying until God turns my hate into love for our God is love. 

Can I love those Babylonians who destroyed the City of God, the City of David, the Holy City, and the Temple as well?  No, not without God and not without accepting the will of God.  If I put hate before love, I have already hung up my harp and my song has stopped in my soul.

I have had some situations that happened in the last few years of my ministry that caused some bitterness and hatred in my heart that shook my very foundation. The devil still attacks me with those thoughts from time to time. I wanted to hand up my harp and quit singing many times because of those who had hurt. Then I realize if I pray for those who attacked me, those feelings started going away. Don't be like the unknown Psalmist and pray against your situation, but hang in their and do the best you can. Remember the past doesn't control your future, but God does. 

Don't Hang Up Your Harps (Part 2)

The Psalmist did three things in these first few verses of Psalm 137:

(1) He first uttered a curse against himself if he forgot Jerusalem.

(2) Secondly, he cursed the Edomites, their cousins, for their joy in seeing Jerusalem destroyed.

(3) Lastly, he cursed Babylon in a brutal way of wishing their children would be "dashed against the stones."

After he got all of this out of his system, he might have felt better and been more able to handle his situation.  I can understand how he felt, because as others have said, “I’ve been there myself.” Yet, it really does no good to put cursings above blessings.  God put us in this world to be a blessing to the rest of the world, therefore we should be praying for our enemies and not cursing them.  When cursings replace blessings we have already hung up the harp and lost our song.  

-The first thing to remember is to not curse ourselves. 

We are poor, weak, human beings and we are going to fail. The Bible says, “There is none righteous no not one.”  We are already failures.  Part of the Psalmist’s lament comes from his own inadequacy in this particular situation.  He sought to be adequate by at least refusing to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land, and by hanging up his harp, thereby refusing to give the Babylonians any entertainment.  That was perhaps the only thing he could control, and he did control that.  Should we, however, withhold our talents and our blessings from others just because we can?  Let us not curse ourselves in our attempt to gain a small victory when we have lost the larger victory.  Bitter and painful are the consequences of failure; but worse still are the consequences of hanging up the harp.            

- We must not curse the Edomites or Babylonians.  

The Edomites were directly related to Judea and Israel, but they hated Israel.  When Judea fell, when Jerusalem was defeated, when the Temple was utterly destroyed, the Edomites were there as a mob cheering on the conquering Babylonians.  The Edomites were cursing Jerusalem, and so the psalmist cursed the Edomites.        Furthermore the Babylonians were exceedingly vicious in their destruction of Jerusalem.  Nebuchadnezzar wanted to show these disloyal Jerusalemites that they could not get by with their refusal to pay tribute to the most powerful kingdom in the world of that day.

Think about it-The City of God destroyed and the Temple desecrated and devastated. So I am not at all surprised at the behavior of the Psalmist.  What he didn’t reason with was this was the will of God. The Psalmist wasn’t worried about humility, nor was he very accepting of the will of God.  So, He hung up his harp.  He blamed the Edomites and the Babylonians for Judea’s fate.  It's sad but true that a man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. 

Yet we know, do we not, how the psalmist felt?  Are we not proud Americans, who love our country with every fiber of our being?  After 911 we saw the vulnerability of our nation. We have also seen racism and terror grip our hearts and lives since that fatal day as well as thousands of our loved ones killed or wounded in their fight against pure evil in foreign lands for our freedoms. We could have rolled over and played dead so to speak in many situations, but the spirit of patriotism raised up and said,
"No, don't give up. Keep on pressing on."

How many times have you wanted to hang up your heart and blame God for others or the mess you are in? Beloved, remember that "even in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil."  It's not time to give up, but square up our spiritual shoulders and rebuke the enemy who seeks to destroy our nation. It might be your song that changes your/our situation. Don't ever feel you're alone in times of difficulty. Lift up your head for your redemption draweth nigh!

Don't Hang Up Your Harp (Part 1)

Psalm 137:1-4 "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Psalm 137 is one that is perfectly beautiful but completely honest.  It was apparently written by an unknown pilgrim who was taken prisoner to Babylon after Nebuchadnezzar’s crushing defeat of Jerusalem.  It is an imprecatory prayer of cursing his enemies. David also prayed several of the imprecatory prayers throughout the Psalms. We should only use these type of prayers against our spiritual enemies today.This Psalmist, whoever he was, sang his lament with a broken heart and a crippled spirit.  Each line of this psalm drips with blood and tears for a dream gone bad.              

The most telling part of this psalm to me is when the Psalmist writes, “We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.”  The Jerusalem prisoners, being carried away captive to Babylon, refused to play their music and refused to sing their song in that strange land.  They left their lyres or harps upon the limbs of the willow trees.            

Like the Psalmist the circumstances of life often times cause us to "hang it up" or "silence our song."  We either do hang up our harps, or, we are at least sorely tempted to do so. Yet, God has a message for all of us who have felt we are trapped in a foreign land away from God. That message is simply this today:

Don’t hang up your harp! 

-Remember you still have music to play!

Psalm 150:3-5 "Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals."

The harp of David brought comfort to Saul when he was troubled by the evil spirit. David believed in the power of music to celebrate and worship the Lord. In times of discomfort he would play and praise the Lord with music that was God given. You have a song to play that the devil wants to stop before you can start. If he can silence the praise and worship in your heart then he can control your mind and spirit. In those times when you feel like hanging up your harp on the willow trees or that God is a million miles from you lift up your hands and declare His glory. The music is still inside of you in spite of the territory you inhabit. Just open up you heart and let it flow. Discouragement is rampant, but God's grace is bigger and better.

-You still have a song to sing.            

Psalm 96:1 "O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth."

If your song has lost it's joy maybe it's time to sing a new one. Sometimes we hold on to songs that don't bless us or bring us encouragement and we feel trapped in a place that seems to have no escape. My advise to you is to change your song. Quit singing songs of lamentation and start singing songs of praise. I love the old songs and the new ones as well, but I know the songs that depress and the songs that express the joy of the Lord. Don't stop singing in your valley; just change your tune and let the words of comfort flow.  God's got a song for you-just open up your heart and receive it. When you get it sing it out loud to yourself and listen to the words. Let the song of the Lord ring out and put your discouragement and despair at bay.