Welcome again to Meditation Moments, and again the old-time greeting: the Lord bless you and make you a blessing.
Thank you for your letters, and thank you most of all for your prayers. I did have a very severe illness, but God answered your prayers and the prayers of others. How faithful He is when it comes to His promises for healing. You know, some time ago someone wrote, “Don’t you think you give too much prominence to the healing of the body? For it is not at all important compared to other spiritual things. Don’t you think it’s being a little fanatical?”
Well, I wouldn’t be here this morning if it wasn’t for God’s healing, and I think I’ve told you a number of times that only through divine healing am I alive today. I’d rather be a fanatic than a corpse. I would, without a shadow of a doubt, have been just that if I hadn’t taken the Lord Jesus Christ as my healer. You’ve heard the testimony so many times; all the doctors, sanitariums, and hospitals to which they had taken me had pronounced my case hopeless and told us they could do no more for us. You surely couldn’t blame anyone when the doctors say, “We can’t do anymore; the case is hopeless,” that we turn to the one who never gives up hope and we take the case to Him who has never lost a case.
Healing by the Lord Jesus Christ, through obedience to His Word, is a spiritual blessing. I think you’re forgetting that, and it brings blessing to all concerned when it comes. Not only does it bring such blessing to the one that is healed, but more important than all else it brings glory to God. God heals the body for His glory. We’d never give one moment’s thought to it if it didn’t bring honor and praise to the name of our precious Lord. The mighty majesty of His works glorifies His name.
Trusting men for healing and looking to them—no matter if they’re just looking at someone that has the gift of healing and they look just to the man, or if they’re looking to help from the medical world—if we praise and exalt those of great repute along these lines, that doesn’t bring the glory to God that trusting Him alone for healing does. Oh, how [healing] does cause men to honor God! You know, in Matthew 15:29–31, God’s Word says that Jesus “came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and they 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 God.”
That’s the beauty of it; that’s the secret of it! We would never want to talk about the Lord’s healing if it didn’t glorify God. You remember the wonderful chapter of Matthew 9, which tells of the healing of the paralytic. Verses 7 and 8: “He arose, and departed to his house.” This is after he was healed. “He arose, and departed to his house. And when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.” No wonder then that the psalmist says, “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men” (Psalm 107:8).
There are so many other scriptures that tell of the fame and glory that came to the Lord through some healing. You’ve read them, you’ve known them, you’ve heard of them. In the case of the two blind men when their eyes were opened, such glory came to the Lord that His fame, God’s Word says, went abroad everywhere (Matthew 9: 31).
This is one reason that Satan fights God’s healing; this is one reason that Satan dislikes to have us talk about it, and tell people that if their case is hopeless the Lord can do it. He can take up where man leaves off. Or if they are not financially able to have help, no matter what, even if they just have something that’s a fatal disease and they want to look to their Lord and Savior. This will just bring glory to His name.
He loves you. He loves you so much that He wants you to have the desire of your heart, and He wants you to have health and blessing. In that chapter in Romans 8, that wonderful verse that we love so much, “He who spared not his own Son, but offered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
This wonderful message about His love, being in love with the love of your soul, and about how He loves you! God loved you so much that He wouldn’t even spare His own Son. That being the case, wouldn’t He with Him also freely give you all things? Wouldn’t He also give you healing for your body?
I love that old song:
Love sent my Savior to die in my stead;
Why should He love me so?
Meekly to Calvary’s cross He was led;
Why should He love me so?Nails pierced His hands and His feet for my sin;
Why should He love me so?
He suffered sore my salvation to win;
Love sent my Savior to Calvary, but
Why should He love me so?Oh how He agonized there in my place
Why should He love me so?
Nothing withholding my sin to efface;
Why should He love me so?—Robert Harkness
This verse in the eighth chapter of Romans tells the story. He’s explaining that very thing: He would not spare His own Son. God wouldn’t spare His only Son—His only begotten Son. So then, wouldn’t He with Him freely give you the healing of your body? Those are wonderful passages of scripture, and there are so many others that tell of the fame and glory that came to the Lord through some miracle in His Word.
That’s the reason that Satan fights God’s healing so hard! It’s such a wonderful manifestation of His love for you, and Satan doesn’t want you to believe that God loves you. He doesn’t want you to believe that God will give you the desires of your heart. He doesn’t want you to believe that “no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11). He tries to bring into disrepute folks that talk about the Lord’s healing. He doesn’t want God to have the glory; he wants to rob God of the glory that comes through this.
In the eleventh chapter of John, we have the story of Lazarus, who’s dead of a sickness, and Jesus said to Martha, “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” (John 11:40). Isn’t that a wonderful passage? Note carefully the fourth verse. Jesus said that this sickness was “not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (John 11:4).
Let me repeat it: “This sickness is not unto death.” Maybe He’s saying that to you this morning, like He did to me so many years ago. “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified.” Maybe He’s speaking that to your heart. Can’t you look up and have faith? Doesn’t hope spring afresh in your heart at these verses of Scripture?
In the case of the man that was born blind, in John 9, Jesus said “that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:3), that the works of God would be made manifest in this blind man. You will remember also that after this marvelous healing, when the man had his sight restored, they drove him from the synagogue because he glorified God. That’s what the Scripture says; he was glorifying God and they drove him from the synagogue (John 9: 34). Just so, the Enemy tries to drive these scriptures from your mind and tries to drive faith in God’s healing from your heart, because you would glorify God when the Lord touches you and raises you up.
All of this hasn’t changed today, for there are those who would drive from the very synagogue those of us who testify to having experienced God’s healing through His touch alone. They just seem to rebel at any testimony that tells of any other expression of God’s love and mercy than they themselves have experienced. Jesus said, “Which is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or Take up thy bed and walk?” (Matthew 9:5; Mark 2:9). They believed sin could be forgiven, but they didn’t believe in the power that could say to the man, “Take up thy bed and walk.”
No matter from what angle you look at Christianity, it’s all a miracle, every bit of it. The most amazing miracle is the new birth, so miraculous and mysterious that it makes healing of the body look insignificant to any demands of faith. Look at it from different angles and it will amaze you more and more—the healing of the soul and how lives are transformed and men are made new creatures in Christ Jesus. Oh, what marvelous miracles! Think of it, the very life and nature of God Himself comes into a man and he becomes a new creature! Could there be a greater miracle?
Colossians 2:13 says, “And you being dead through your trespasses did He make alive together with Him, having been gracious to us in all our trespasses.” So we’ve been made alive together with Him. Colossians 2:12: “Wherein ye are also raised through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” Oh, when He was made alive in spirit, so were we! This is the legal aspect of the new creation: when you accept Christ as your Savior and confess Him as your Lord, the life of Christ comes into your spirit and re-creates you.
Ephesians 2:1 says” “And you did He make alive when ye were dead through your trespasses and sin.” Could there be a more marvelous miracle than to become a new creation in Christ Jesus? Have you experienced this miracle? Have you been born again a new creation (2 Corinthians 5: 17)? Tired of yourself, weary of sin and mistakes, you can become a new creature by accepting Christ right now as your Savior, making him the Lord of your life. The lesser miracle then [of healing], the same life comes into your mortal body that we spoke of in Romans 8.
Your Creator can re-create every organ in your body, but first of all comes the re-creation of your soul. All this He will do so that you might glorify Him and be a witness to His great love and power. He waits to bless you! He longs with a great Father-heart to help you and draw you to Himself. Open your heart to Him.