Virginia Brandt Berg (1898-1968)
There are many sufferers who do not ask for God's healing, because they feel it might not be the Lord's Will. They feel that God is chastening them, and they don't want to resist His Will. One woman wrote, saying, "I don't want to lose the blessing to be had, as promised in Hebrews 12:11, where it says, 'Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.' I want to be exercised by it, and I don't want to ask for God's healing, because it might not be the Lord's Will."
Well, I confess that the Lord's does allow sickness to come sometimes as a means of drawing us closer to Him, and as a means of needed chastening. But that doesn't mean that the chastening has to continue on and on after the lesson has been learned and after the Divine purpose has been accomplished. You'll notice that the next two verses in this same Chapter say, "Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed." -- Hebrews 12:12,13.
So it ends with the thought, that after you've learned the lesson, God is waiting to heal you. This is the answer to the word "afterward" in verse 11: That after the lesson is learned, after the will is surrendered, after the heart us fully yielded, He says, "Let it rather be healed."
So often the trial continues so long because we're unwilling to believe and accept God's promises. Some of the most precious saints, realizing the purifying process of their sufferings, feared to seek deliverance, not realizing that unbelief in God's Word is just as great a sin as that. If the peaceable fruit of righteousness that's mentioned in this verse has been accomplished in the sufferer, then the trial isn't any longer needed, is it?
There comes a time when you have to accept deliverance and trust God. We must accept. We might as well begin to trust now, because that's what you're going to have to do in the end. I have seen recently some one who seemed completely hedged in with no way out, and yet the Lord wrought the most wonderful deliverance the moment they came to the place of absolute trust in God and accepting from the Lord His promise, accepting what He said He'd do.
He's so much more loving and forgiving than any Earthly parent, and He'll not refuse to deliver us from affliction when that purpose is accomplished and we're ready to fully trust Him. In Hosea, Chapter 6, verse 1, it says, "Come, let us return unto the Lord: for He hath torn, and will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up." God has spoken His Will for you through His Word, and I do not believe that He's going to give any special revelation to anyone. That's His Will for you and He's plainly revealed His Will in His Word, and it can't be denied that God has revealed His Will regarding healing of His children, that is, when all of the conditions are met.
You can begin way back in the Old Testament and find the revealed Will of God, for when He took the Israelites out of Egypt, He gave them an ordinance for healing: "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee." -- Exodus 15:26. Couldn't be any plainer, could it? This was also repeated at the close of their 40 years of wandering, through confession of sin and repentance they received healing and answer to prayer.
If this was God's way in the old dispensation, surely it's more so under the new dispensation! For Christ is the fulfillment of the old, and Christ is unchanging, for the Word declares that He's the same. -- Heb.13:8. His power hasn't changed and His Love surely hasn't changed. It took just two things in those days for the healing of the sick: The power of Christ and the faith of the sufferer.
But I know what has changed! -- Not the power of God, but the church's faith has changed. We're tried to bring God's Word down to the level of our lack of faith. What we don't have faith for, we excuse by saying that it isn't for today. Matthew 12:15 says, "Great multitudes followed Him and He healed them all." And Matthew 8:16,17 says that He "healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, 'Himself, took our infirmities and bore our sickness.'" Surely then, if my heart is right with God, and my faith is right, I don't have to bear what He bore for me, right? The things that convinced Me most regarding the Lord's Will to heal today, was the fact that I found His command to heal in every one of the great conditions, which He commissioned the twelve disciples, and on down through all the commissions of the great World Commission.
He waits to bless you. He wants for you to have the best. "Delight thyself in the Lord." He says He'll give you the desires of your heart. "Taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out of them all." -- Psalm 37:4; 34:8,10,19. Now taste and see that the Lord is good. Take hold of the promise. He's still on the Throne, and prayer will change things for you.