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against Him, He loves us so much that He is always sending some
ray of divine light through the prayers of His people or their testi-
monies or their loving smiles or some Word of God dropped into
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His Healing Power
our minds by the Holy Spirit to lighten our darkness and to invite
us to throw our whole beings wide open to the illuminating,
warming, electrifying, healing, energizing, vitalizing, magnetizing
rays of the Sun of Righteousness.
I saw some little children once who were the very incarnation of
health. They were nut-brown from head to foot, and they radiated
physical vigor and well-being from every pore. I asked their mother,
What have you been doing to them? And she replied, I had them
at the seaside; and it was beautiful weather, just sunshine all the
time. And I stripped off their clothes and put tiny bathing trunks on
them so there wasn t a thing between them and the sunshine, and the
sun did all the rest. Dr. Sun is my doctor from henceforth.
Yes, the sun is a wonderful doctor, but even he sometimes fails;
but the Sun of Righteousness never fails to illuminate the darkest
heart that is opened wide to receive Him and to heal the most
hopeless case that comes to Him. Only we must be like the tiny
children; we must have nothing between us and the Sun, not so
much as a cloud to arise and darken our skies or hide for a
moment our Lord from our eyes, nothing of sin or self that could
separate us from Jesus.
Shall we open wide the doors and windows? If they are already
open, throw them wider; or better still, step right out of ourselves into
Christ. As a song in the Spirit, which the Lord gave to my sister, says:
Step out into the light, and stay there,
Walk there, sit down there;
Step out into the light, and grow there,
Praise the living Word;
In Jesus all is bright, so live there,
Rest there, abide there;
Step out into the light,
Pass on through faith, to sight,
The light of God.
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Teaching, Preaching, and Healing
Now let us take a look at the work of Jesus, the Saviour and
Healer, as described in the New Testament. Note first of all that He
followed a definite method and order in its performance: (1) teaching,
(2) preaching, and (3) healing. (Matt. 4:23.) First things first, so
Jesus first teaches; He reveals to man God s will for him and shows
him how far he has wandered from it. Second, He preaches, or
proclaims, to man the salvation provided for him through Christ
Jesus, which, accepted by faith, brings him into perfect harmony
with the divine will. And third, heals; He removes from human
bodies the results of sin. This is God s order, and it is well to
remember that it is unchanging.
Sometimes people who come to be healed of some distressing
complaint are likely to feel rather impatient when instead of at
once praying for their immediate deliverance we deliberately,
prayerfully, and reverently, read to them from the Word (even for
hours if the Spirit so leads). They forget that the words themselves
are Spirit and life (John 6:63) and that He sent his word and
healed them. (Ps. 107:20.)
I have seen patients who were so completely drained of vitality
that, from a medical standpoint, I should have thought it necessary
to administer powerful heart stimulants at frequent intervals to
prevent collapse. But they listened to the Word of God for hours
continuously and lifted their heads under the distillation of its heav-
enly dews like a parched garden after a gracious shower.
The Word teaches, reveals God to man, so that man abhors
himself in dust and ashes. As Job says, & now mine eye seeth thee.
Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5,6).
It also preaches, shows him the way out of defilement and into holi-
ness, by the blood of Jesus. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus (Heb. 10:19), and heals
all who will through the boundless grace that flows from Calvary,
accept God s perfect will for spirit, soul, and body, that they may
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His Healing Power
& be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
(1 Thess. 5:23).
When Jesus said to the impotent man in the fifth chapter of
John s gospel, Wilt thou be made whole? (v. 6), He meant nothing
short of this. Not only that his poor atrophied body should rise from
its supineness but that the whole man should rise to walk in heaven s
own light, above the world and sin; for in the 14th verse of the same
chapter we find Him telling the man to sin no more. It is God s
revealed will toward us not only to remove all sin and disease but to
also lift us far above the realm in which sin and disease operate, even
into the resurrection life of Christ: For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death (Rom.
8:2). And He is saying to each one, Wilt thou be made whole? Not
half, not 60 percent or even 90 percent, but 100 percent, whole!
So much for a general consideration of the teaching of the New
Testament regarding healing. Now we will study some particular
cases found in the eighth chapter of Matthew.
The first thing that strikes us as we begin is the fact that each
case in the New Testament has certain features peculiar to itself, not
to be found in connection with others. I believe that this is to show
us how inexhaustible are God s resources and how perfectly able
He is to meet the need in each case that is unreservedly placed in
His hands.
The first patient in the eighth chapter of Matthew is the leper
who believed implicitly in the power of the Lord to heal him but
doubted His willingness. & Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me
clean (Matt. 8:2). Jesus, the author and finisher of faith, completes
the supplicant s faith by His I will, (v. 3) and the result is the
man s immediate healing.
The Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is God s I WILL to
every seeker for full salvation for soul and body. Jesus, the only
begotten Son of God, hanging on the cross in agony and blood, is
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Teaching, Preaching, and Healing
God s I have delivered you, and this is what it cost me. Can you
doubt My willingness?
Jesus speaks of healing as the children s bread in the 15th
chapter of Matthew, verse 26; and no earthly father worthy of the
name will withhold bread from his children, much less our heav-
enly Father.
We are taught to pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in
heaven (Matt. 6:10); and there is no sin or sickness in heaven, for
nothing that defileth can enter there.
God desires our bodily healing just as He desires our spiritual
well-being, for the apostle John prayed for the well-beloved Gaius,
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in
health, even as thy soul prospereth (3 John 2).
Some say that this leper was told not to testify, but that is a
mistake. Rather, he was directed just how, when, where, and to
whom he was to testify. He was to testify to the priest, the official
appointed to examine lepers and pronounce them clean in the event
of their healing; and he was to bring the required offering. One
reason for this was that leprosy is a type as well as a result of sin,
and the righteousness that is by faith in Jesus Christ is to be
witnessed by both the law and the prophets. (Rom. 3:21.) After I
was healed of the morphine habit, some of my Christian friends
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