Salvation, Overcomer's Life

How should men seek healing before God? Three sentences in the Gospel of Mark are worth learning. I find them especially helpful, at least they are very effective for me. The first touches upon the power of the Lord; the second, the will of the Lord; and the third, the act of the Lord.

a) The Power of the Lord: “God can.” “And Jesus asked his father, “How long has he had this?’ And he said, “From childhood. And it has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘If you can! All things are possible to him who believes”‘ (9. 21-23). The Lord Jesus merely repeated the three words which the child’s father had uttered. The father cried, “If you can, help us.” The Lord responded, “If you cant Why, all things are possible to him who believes.” The problem here is not “if you can” but rather “if you believe.”

Is it not true that the first problem which arises with sickness is a doubt about God’s power? Under a microscope the power of bacteria seems to be greater than the power of God. Very rarely does the Lord cut off others in the middle of their speaking, but here he appears as though He were angry. (May the Lord forgive me for phrasing it this way!) When He heard the child’s father say “If you can, have pity on us and help us,” He sharply reacted with “Why say if you can? All things are possible to him who believes. In sickness, the question is not whether I can or cannot but whether you believe or not.”

The initial step for a child of God to take in sickness therefore is to raise up his head and say “Lord, you cant” You remember, do you not, the first instance of the Lord’s healing of a paralytic? He asked the Pharisees, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, “Rise, take up your pallet and walk’?” (Mark 2.9) The Pharisees naturally thought it easier to say your sins are forgiven, for who could actually prove it is or is not so? But the Lord’s words and their results showed them that He could heal sickness as well as forgive sins. He did not ask which was more difficult, but which was easier. For Him, both were equally easy. It was as easy for the Lord to bid the paralytic rise and walk as to forgive the latter’s sins. For the Pharisees, both were as difficult.

b) The Will of the Lord: “God will.” Yes, He indeed can, but how do I know if He wills? I do not know His will; perhaps He does not want to heal me. This is another story in Mark again. “And a leper came to him beseeching him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean. Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I will; be clean’ “ (1.40-41).

However great the power of God is, if He has no wish to heal, His power shall not help me. The problem to be solved at the outset is: Can God?; the second is: Will God? There is no sickness as unclean as leprosy. It is so unclean that according to law whoever touches a leper becomes himself unclean. Yet the Lord Jesus touched the leper and said to him, “I will.” If He would heal the leper, how much more wills He to cure our diseases. We can proclaim boldly, “God can” and “God will.”

c) The Act of the Lord: “God has.” One more thing must God do. “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it. Therefore I say unto you, all things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive (Gr. received) them, and ye shall have them” (11. 23-24 ASV). What is faith? Faith believes God can, God will, and God has done it. If you believe you have received it, you shall have it. Should God give you His word, you can thank Him by saying, “God has healed me; He has already done; it!” Many believers merely expect to be healed. Expectation regards things in the future, but faith deals with the past. If we really believe, we shall not wait for twenty or a hundred years, but shall rise up immediately and say, “Thank God He has healed me. Thank God, I have received it. Thank God, I am clean! Thank God, I am well.” A perfect faith can there fore proclaim God can, God will and God has done it.

Faith works with “is” and not “wish.” Allow me to use a simple illustration. Suppose you preach the gospel and one professes that he has believed. Ask him whether he is saved and should his answer be, I wish to be saved, then you know this reply is inadequate. Should he say, I will be saved, the answer is still incorrect. Even if he responds with, I think I shall definitely be saved, something is yet missing. But when he answers, I am saved, you know the flavor is right. If one believes, then he is saved. All faith deals with the past. To say I believe I shall be healed is not true faith. If he believes, he will thank God and say, I have received healing.

Lay hold of these three steps: God can, God will, God has. When man’s faith touches the third stage, the sickness is over.

We can't lose eternal life if we are saved but we can lose the reward of reigning in the 1000 years.
Soon after a person is saved he is set by God on a specific course that lies ahead of him. The entire life of a Christian can be likened to running a race. Yet this is not a racing towards the goal of eternal life. On the contrary, only the person who has eternal life is qualified to run. No, the result of this race is that some of the participants are to be crowned while others will not be.

What is meant by the crown? The crown represents the kingdom. It signifies reigning, having dominion and glory. And thus to obtain the crown means to gain the kingdom—that is to say, to reign with the Lord Jesus. For a Christian, having eternal life is already a settled matter, but having the kingdom depends on how that Christian runs.

If the loaves are not in the Lord’s hands, He cannot bless. After blessing, there must be the breaking. How people love the blessing but abhor the breaking. How can the 5,000 men be filled if there is no breaking? And how can the Lord break the loaves if they are not given over to His hand? The Lord always takes our consecration for real, and so He starts to break us. Sometimes after consecration there will come extraordinary things, such as the losing of someone you love or the losing of wealth. This is an indication of breaking, for breaking will not occur until you are consecrated.
Immediately after the Great War in Europe, a great celebration was held in London. The war had just been concluded, and the soldiers had returned home for a triumphant march. As the soldiers marched on, the sound waves of applause and praise flowed incessantly. Rank after rank had passed by until suddenly the air was explosive with the tremendous waves of even greater applause and praise. Many who watched were moved to tears. And at one point the nobility saluted and the king removed his crown. And why? Because immediately behind the marching ranks came carrier after carrier of soldiers who had lost their limbs or had been terribly wounded in body!

Those who have suffered on earth and have forsaken something for the sake of Christ, they shall receive much on that day just as had the wounded soldiers received much during that triumphal march; louder applause, higher praise, and greater glory.

We should see that healing is in God’s hand. Learn to trust Him Who heals. In the Old Testament God has a special name which is, “I am the Lord, your healer” (Ex. 15.26). Look to Him and He will be gracious to His own in this particular regard.

The initial step which the believer should therefore take when sick is to ferret out the cause; afterwards he may resort to several different ways for healing, one of which is to call the elders of the church to pray and anoint him with oil. This is the only command in the Bible concerning sickness.

Is any among you sick? 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; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. (James 5.14-15)

Make no haste in seeking a cure, but rather have dealings with God at the outset. One of the things to be done is to call for the elders of the church to anoint you with oil. This speaks of the flowing of the oil from the Head to you as one of the members of the body. The oil which the Head receives runs down upon the whole body. As a member of the body of Christ, one can expect the oil on the Head to flow to him. Where life flows, sickness is swept away. The purpose of anointing is hence to bring down oil from the Head. Through disobedience, sin or perhaps some other reason the believer has gotten himself out of the body circulation and has departed from the body protection.

Accordingly, he needs to call the elders of the church to reinstate him into the circulation and life flow of the body of Christ. This is just as in the physical body; for when any of its members is out of joint the life of the body cannot flow freely into it. Thus the anointing is to restore such a flow. The elders represent the local church; they anoint the believer on behalf of the body of Christ so that the oil of the Head may flow to him once again. Let the oil on the Head come upon that member through which life has been obstructed! Our experience tells us that such anointing may raise the seriously sick up instantly.

At times one identifies the explanation for his illness to be his individualism. This may well be the chief cause for illness. Some Christians are highly individualistic. They do everything according to their own will. They do it all by themselves. If the hand of God comes upon them they grow sick, for the supply of the body does not reach such members. I dare not over-simplify these matters. The reasons for sickness can be many and varied. One sickness may be due to disobeying the Lord’s command, refusing to carry out His will; another may be caused by committing some particular sin; but still another may be the consequence of individualism. Now in the case of certain individualists God overlooks and does not discipline; but especially in the case of those who know the church, He chastens them with illness if they commence to act independently. The Lord will not let these go without some discipline.

It is also possible that infirmity is the consequence of a defiled body. Should anyone defile his body, God will destroy that temple. Many are infirm because they have corrupted their bodies.

By way of summing up, then, no sickness occurs without a cause. If the Christian contracts an illness he should try to locate its cause or causes. After he has confessed them one by one before God he should summon the elders of the church so that they may confess to one another and pray for one another. The elders will anoint the sick one with oil that the life of the body of Christ may be restored to him. The influx of life will swallow up the disease. We believe in natural causes, but we additionally must affirm that spiritual causes have priority over the natural. If the spiritual are taken care of, the sickness shall be healed completely.

This is how I think - how I prove the revelation I received that Jesus is God and salvation is only through Him. What I received and know in my spirit (innerman) when I was born-again can be understood in my soul (outerman) and made sense of.

I think to myself there are trillions and trillions of causes in nature and no hard evidence something comes from nothing, so this is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the universe can't come from nothing, that which does not exist that has no energy or existence, for the 1st law of thermodynamics would be violated. Something can't come from nothing!

There also cannot be an infinite regress of the universe or universes of cause and effects, because you would have happened already having had an eternity to do so. Infinite regress contradicts itself. If there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects this point in time would never have been reached because eternity would still be going on.

So if there can't be an infinite regress and there can't be something from nothing, there needs to be a cause outside of nature, outside of time and space, and this is whom we call the uncreated Creator or God. So there is grounds for One Uncreated Creator, no more, since if there were others, you would have to ask where they came from.

Is it better the Creator is an absentee landlord like all other gods of the world which are really just idols, or does He reveal Himself personally by entering His creation? Why create if you want no interaction with your creation? Makes no sense. Just as we are relational so is God relational in His 3 Persons of the Trinity and towards His creation. Atheists are cold-hearted, impersonal and worship their idol of claiming God does not exist that reflects their insincerity, lack of genuine empathy for fellow man, feeding their selfish gene and decrepit, morally bankrupt ideational world of natural selection only. When they realize this is futile they even start defending other gods.

Even if you don't know anything about God's word (66 books of the Bible) you know God entered His creation personally. Jesus is the only One who said He is God, that He created all things and actually proved it. If you want to prove the resurrection, it's really quite simple. Just realize the original disciples testified to having seen Jesus alive from the dead in various group settings. No other belief system has God Himself entering His creation to walk among us. Almost all scholars concede at the very least the disciples believed in their heart of hearts they had seen Jesus alive from the dead in various group settings even talked with, touched and ate with Him. They knew Jesus well after spending three years with Him. Since there is no naturalistic explanation to account for their eyewitness testimony they willingly died for and all possibilities have been exhausted from group hallucinations to swoon theory, we realize it is a perfect proof for God.

Now if you don't want to receive what Jesus did for you on the cross, God is not going to force you. He will send you where you want to go to be eternally separated from Him and the Lamb, and without the Holy Spirit, in that place called Hell devoid of His presence. If you want to be separated from His presence don't complain about it. It's what you want. People who go to the Lake of Fire (Hell) do so because deep down inside that's what they want. There they will live out their conscious existence for eternity knowing they made the wrong choice. What a horrible way to exist. I can see why it's called Hell, having to live with eternal regret, not even wanting God's forgiveness.

How sad for the atheists. They are dullards of the universe and truly bad people. I suspect the Hell that atheists will endure will be far greater than someone who at least believes in an uncreated creator even though he may submit himself to the wrong one.

I enjoy sci-fi movies like Battlestar Galactica, the infinite regress they portray, just as much as the next person, but it's not reality and never will be. It's just entertainment. The universe really is 13.7 billion years old. Our bodies really were formed from dust over that time (Gen. 2.7). When the body was fully formed about 6000 years ago, God really did breath in the breath of life directly creating man's spirit and when it made contact with the body the soul life was formed so man became a living soul with a spirit and a body (Heb. 4.12, 1 Thess. 5.23). Ever since about 6000 years ago man was made in God's image with a fully developed spirit of God-consciousness. Once a person has God-consciousness they will never cease to exist even if they want to in their suicidal and selfish belief system such as in Atheism or 7th Day Adventism, because God would be evil to create you with awareness of Him only to then annihilate you. God is love, and He is righteous and holy. You are free to be delusional though in thinking you will cease to exist, but you will awaken from soul sleep in bad side of Hades, resurrected to the Great White Throne (Rev. 20.10-15), judged and sentenced to eternity with the Devil, the fallen angels and demons.

It's important that when we confront an atheist today that we realize exactly what kind of person we are really dealing with. They are hellbound. After you give them the gospel if they remain obstinate, obnoxious and obtuse, it's clear the choice they have made for themselves.