For Those in Need (Part B)

Unanswered, urgent prayer is one of the most difficult parts of our faith, of our Christian life, but by unanswered prayer God separates those who are serious about trusting Him from those who just want something from Him.

Serious business. He says, and the Lord will raise them up, save the sick from their suffering, if that should be the will of God. You can hear more information about cross-reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here's Pastor Rick in James chapter 5 with his continuing study called, For Those in Need. If it were so simple where he says, anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord and they'll be healed, then we would see this happening all the time. But we don't see that happening.

That's a fact. So the truth, that's what we're after, the incorrect interpretation springs from absence of the intended meaning at the time James wrote this. James did not say, this is a sort of a Christian lucky charm. You put this on the person, boom, you get what you want from God.

That is not what he was thinking at all. There is no spiritual power in oil to heal. The power is in God alone, alone.

There's significance to this, especially for the people that he wrote to at this time. All healing is by God. Psalm 103 verse 3, speaking of Yahweh who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. It is God. We have in this verse, coupled together, medicine and prayer.

That is part of the idea. Not necessarily healing medicine, but soothing also. The use of oil was used when folks were hurting. The good Samaritan, what did he do to the man he found on the side of the road who was badly beaten? He poured oil and wine on the wounds of that man. Isaiah chapter 6, from the sole of the foot even to the head.

There is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. They have not been closed or bound up or soothed with oil. See, the idea is that in those days, they used oil on wounds.

Not every single wound, but many of them. Mark, when he mentions that Jesus sent the disciples out to heal, one occasion they go out with oil and the other occasion they do not. This Greek word here, for anointing him with oil. Alipo, it means to rub in, as opposed to the word translated anointing, which we find in, for instance, Luke's gospel. Creole, from where we get the word Christ, that's a separate kind of anointing. That's a spiritual anointing. That has to do with the spirit, whereas alipo has to do with just rubbing in natural things, physical things. When Jesus said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach, that word translated anointed in the Greek is creo. It is only given to the Lord in the New Testament, and that has to do with spiritual properties.

So there's a distinction found in the very language. Peter and Paul healed throughout the book of Acts without oil. And I mentioned the use of medicine and faith together. Well, when Paul said to Timothy, listen, that water you're drinking in that city is bad for you. You need to mix it. Put some wine in the water and cut that stuff, the bad guys, out of the water that you're drinking in.

So I'll read it to you. 1 Timothy 5 23, no longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake and frequent infirmities. And so God, through prayer of faith, not oil, brings the healing. The dead have been raised. The sick have been healed.

The lepers have been cleansed. The blind have been given their sight throughout Scripture without oil. Sorry I have to spend so much time on this, but it's poor Bible study back exegesis.

It's poor extraction of the meaning from the Scripture to say, no, this is what we do. Now, years ago, there was a child that was very sick in the hospital, and the mother was just at her end. And she asked me to come up and anoint the child with oil and pray.

Well, I wasn't going to say, well, theologically, you're not right. I went up to the hospital with oil because of that poor woman's heart, and I rubbed it on the child's head, and I prayed. And the child got better. The child got better because of the medical assistance that was available given by God. The child was healed by God. All healings come from him, whether you are a believer or not. All he has to do is turn the spigot off, and nobody gets well. I just pinched the airline to earth, and that's it.

Take away gravity. Every good gift comes from the Father. He holds the controls. And if I were oppressed again in another situation like that, I would do it the same way, because I understand what's going on. I don't want to spend any more time on this than I have already, but the conclusion of the matter is that the sick are to be prayed for and cared for, or should I say it this way, they are to be prayed for with care. Who wants someone that's insensitive praying for you? Sure, God bless you, my son.

Next. You want the person to be part of what is going on in the presence of the Lord. And so he says, in the name of the Lord. There's no other unseen authority that we recognize as authority of righteousness and good. We understand there are principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. We understand that, but that's not our authority.

That's wicked authority. When Jesus offended the congregation, many of them said, that's it, we're out finding another church. Jesus looked at his disciples and said, you're going to? Simon Peter said, where are we going to go? John 6 verse 68, Simon Peter answered them, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. James is saying, if you're going to heal, heal with care. Minister to the body and the spirit in the name of Christ. The Jews would have understood that when he wrote this to them. They would have understood that the oil was part of the healing process. To this day, we use oil. You know, you have maybe an inner wax build up?

Who thought we'd be talking about that Sunday morning? You go to the pharmacist, you say, hey. And you ask for sweet oil. Don't drink it. You can.

It's olive oil. And you put it in your ear and you can hear me better when I'm preaching on Sunday mornings. That's the whole purpose behind it. Of course, I'm sure of it.

Verse 15. Now, let me stop there. Now, if there's anyone here that you insist that the oil is to be put up on. OK, fine. Don't argue with me about it.

It's not an essential. All we'll do is and I disagree with you. OK, you disagree with me. And then, you know, bink and you do that.

Just fine. Verse 15. And the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So the prayer of faith is what does it.

There's the answer there. Not the oil, the prayer of faith. What is the prayer of faith? The one that seeks God's will. That all the time wants God's will. That knows that God is fully aware of what is going on and is loving and merciful.

But also, at some point, sometimes beyond our understanding, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts as the heavens are above the earth. I have a quote here from Dave Hunt I'd like to share. Dave Hunt was a great man of God.

And if you can read as much of many of his books as you can get, you do yourself a good thing. But he's dealing with those who name it and claim it and insist on their will be done, not God's will. Because there are actually those in some churches that go out and say it's weak to say thy will be done.

Are they insane? Jesus himself said not my will be done. Hunt says to say that failure to be healed results from too little faith and fasting is false. That teaching implies that we can cause God to do whatever we pray for if we pray and fast long and hard enough. In other words, that we can impose our will upon him. What about God's will? It also suggests that God's will is to heal everyone every time. On the contrary, he has something better for us than perpetuating our lives endlessly in these bodies of sin. Amen, brother.

And yet there are those that are becoming disillusioned and discouraged because there are people telling them the opposite to this. In 2 Kings, we read this about the great prophet Elijah. Who did twice as many miracles on record as the prophet Elijah, his teacher. Elijah.

Elijah had become sick. With the illness of which he would die. We accept that, but he where is he now?

He's a better place. So I believe the primary reason people are healed is so God can receive the glory. Because after all, God could have just kept the person healthy. But should they become sick and God works a healing?

We catch a glimpse of his majesty. We have a platform, a stronger or taller platform, you might say, to preach the glory of God to those who witnessed God's work. He says here in verse 15, and the Lord will raise them up, not with the oil again.

And I don't mean to, well, I do mean to keep hitting that a little bit because it needs to be pointed out. Again, Psalm 103, verse 3, God who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. James is not here guaranteeing healing. Now the fake healers, again, leave a trail of disillusionment and discouragement behind because they make these promises that God has not promised. They use his word to do it.

Ignoring the facts that surround them. Unanswered, urgent prayer is one of the most difficult parts of our faith, of our Christian life. But by unanswered prayer, God separates those who are serious about trusting him from those who just want something from him.

Serious business. He says, and the Lord will raise them up, save the sick from their suffering if that should be the will of God. There is opportunity in unanswered prayer to preach, of course, to tell the truth about God, to demonstrate unbroken communion with God in spite of what is going on. We are saying to the world that we are still active, still persevering, still present and on time for roll call in the presence of the Lord whether he answers our prayers or not. That's why we read the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel and we're so impressed when they say, King, we're not even thinking about how we need to answer you here. We already know how God can deliver us from this furnace.

And if he doesn't take us out of this hot thing, he's no less our God. We're still not bowing down to you. You're fake. He's not.

Job, though he slay me, I will trust him. And we are impressed by that and we should be. It's just not that easy to pull it off all the time. I believe that a big help to being able to stand strong is humility. The world often sees humility as weakness.

We see it as strength. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. The gospel insists that sinners can be forgiven. Numbers 21, verse 7. This is when they were bad mouthing the Lord as they... The Jews coming out of Egypt, that was the church no man wanted to pastor and Moses got the assignment. And as I pointed out over again, he said to the Lord, get someone else.

Flat out, just like that. And God said, no. You believe in me, you're mine. Well, Numbers 27, therefore the people came to Moses and said, we have sinned for we have spoken against Yahweh and against you. Pray to Yahweh that he take away the serpents from us.

So Moses prayed for the people and God said, put up a brass serpent. If they look at the serpent, they will be healed from the serpent's bite. But if they don't, they will perish.

It's the same today. If you come to Christ, you will be healed from the punishment of sin that lie upon you. The curse of sin. And if you don't, you will perish. John chapter 3, verse 14. Jesus said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.

For what purpose? Salvation. Forgiveness. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. First John 1 9. And so James says, if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

And we're going to stay with this a little bit. Verse 16. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The effective and fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. There is zero justification in these words for the practice of confessing your sins to a priest.

We don't do that. The Bible never supports that. Luther has a comment that kind of hits it on the head. Strange confessor. His name is one another. Those who practice going to confession to a priest, they're not confessing to one another.

One is just airing his dirty laundry to the other one. We go to God and we, you know, when folks come to the pastors, we don't need details. We need the essentials.

What we need to know to understand what needs to happen. And if a person starts giving details, we cut them off because they're not necessary. And who wants that in their head anyway?

That stuff will lead you to stumble. Now, this does not mean if you've had certain, you know, you don't say to somebody, you know what? I've been thinking about stealing your truck.

It's so nice. And I have to confess this to you. That would be stupid. He might beat you up for even thinking about touching his truck. Now, his car, he might say, I don't know why you would take it, but my truck. So, we are to confess our sins to God and our wrongdoings to the one we did wrong to.

What is tricky about that? What happens when we bottle it up? When we've done someone wrong and we don't go to them and say, I admit it. I was wrong. What happens then? Well, some of you know. You found out the hard way.

And so, skip that step for those of you who might not yet have realized this. When you have wronged someone, Jesus said, you know what? Don't go going to church talking about how spiritual you are and you've done someone wrong and you've not made it right. Leave your offering and fix it. Go fix the problem. Some are afraid that if they say, you know what, I was wrong, that the other one's okay, I know you were wrong, now I'm going to take advantage of you.

That's not it. I can pardon a wrong done by another. Can I pardon a wrong done to me? So, confession, it certainly has to be limited to that circle of need.

Otherwise, it may do more harm. I was at a pastors conference once and one of the pastors, we were rooming in three of us together in a room, and one said, you know, James says confess your sins to one another. And so, let's do that. And he said, you know, I struggle with, you know, substance abuse. And he went on to some of the details and then the other one said, I struggle with lust. I can't help myself. And I said, I struggle with gossip and I can't wait to get out of this room.

That really happened. The point is, you just can't go blabbing your mouth to everybody, telling them what your problems are. Who wants to hear it? I got my own problems. This has to do, when you have wronged somebody, you've got to make it right and not pretend that your trampling on the heart of another is somehow acceptable to God.

Because you've gotten away with it, you think? And so, he goes at it, confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another. Instead of doing wrong and ignoring it, how about praying for the other? If you, those of you who do struggle with gossip, for example, you can redirect that.

You know how you do like, they do on a train tracks, they just pull the lever and the track goes to another direction, just one little twist. Instead of gossiping about the person, how about praying for the person? You still get to talk, you still get to talk about the person. You're just not talking to other people about them, you're looking for solutions. And no, you don't pray God, help someone.

So you know how messed up they are, how annoying, how I like to kick them off a cliff every now and then. That's not prayer. Heartfelt prayer and he's going to talk about that. Prayer is work, it doesn't come natural to us, it's a spiritual thing. Most people do not like to pray until there's something pressing down on them very hard, even Christians.

Our prayer meetings, they're never packed. Prayer is hard work. And Satan knows it and he loves it, that Christians just won't punch through. Matthew 7 verse 12, therefore whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.

This is scripture. Pray for one another. Do you want people praying for you? Who would be foolish enough to say, I don't want anybody praying for me?

You'd be a fool. We all need and should want prayer. He says that you may be healed. So scripture is connecting now, unconfessed sin with sickness.

And it doesn't only do it here. That's important. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 30, Paul says concerning the communion table, which the early Christians began to abuse the Christian table. They were getting drunk in church, drinking too much.

Wow, this is wonderful. And the church cut it out. We're going to fix this.

You're not going to just let this happen. So he writes, he says, for this reason many are weak and sick among you and many sleep. It's a euphemism for many have died as a judgment because of the trampling of the communion table. Peter said that misbehavior towards a spouse will block your prayers. What does that mean, to cut your prayers off?

That's what it means. God says, why are you even talking to me? You got stuff to deal with. You refuse to do it.

This is unacceptable. This is not sin that you're struggling with. This is just blatant sin that harms others. Husbands likewise dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife. And then he says that your prayers may not be hindered. Jesus, Isaiah, and James, they all tell us carnality blocks prayer. Matthew 13, Jesus quoting Isaiah. For the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. There's sarcasm in that. Oh, no, no, don't obey the prophets.

Don't just keep going your way because I would hate for you to have to come to me and get healed. That's the kind of the idea in back of that. Sarcasm works sometimes. In boot camp it works pretty good.

You younger Christians maybe, well, I'll just share this much. When I went to boot camp, and I've said this before, they never asked my opinion. Not once. It was their way or that was going to be very bad for me. And I'm glad they weren't trying to be like me. In fact, when you first arrive at Paris Island, it's dark. And the drill instructors that you're going to have, they don't get to see you as a civilian. I think they're afraid they'll kill you. So you go through this process.

They shave your hair off and they give you about a week or so. Then you meet your teachers. And I guess the point, I don't know what my point is. I'm having flashbacks. You know, it's okay to look up to those who are trying to say, I want you to be up here. It's okay. And not resist them.

Submit to them. Well, he says here, James does in verse 16, the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Effective and fervent in the Greek, in this verse, is a single word.

From our English word, energy is tied to that Greek word. So the energetic prayer, not the whole hum. I encourage you when you pray for your food to do more than just say, you know, God is great. God is good. Thank you for the grub.

I encourage you to think about what you're saying. Yes, Lord, thank you for my food. Thanks for joining us today as we took a deeper look into the book of James here on Cross Reference Radio. Cross Reference Radio is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. We're blessed to bring you God's word with each broadcast. If you'd like more information or want to listen to additional teachings from Pastor Rick, please visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. If you've been blessed by this program, we'd love to hear from you. When you visit the website, simply click on the contact us link at the top of the page and leave us a message. That website again is crossreferenceradio.com. Please join us again next time as we continue our study through the book of James right here on Cross Reference Radio.