Spiritual Healing

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I have my good friends Tiger and Elena Hebert or Hebert back again today and I'm excited to have him back again. We kind of touched on this a little bit on the last segment about cessationism and also about healing and knowing God, about how you can have a personal relationship with God, but I wanted to dig into this a little bit more today. As a matter of fact, I'm going to pull out John chapter 10 and I'm going to start in verse 35. It says, if he called them gods to whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the father sanctified and sent into the world? You are blaspheming because I said, I am the son of God.

If I do not do the works of my father, do not believe me, but if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the father is in me and I in him. And even after that, he said, therefore they sought again to seize him, but he escaped out of their hand in verse 39. So, uh, you know, it's interesting when I read that, and I know Tiger on the last show, we were talking a little bit about the cessation, cessationism movement and actually looked into that a little bit last night.

And a lot of that started, it was with the reform movement with, uh, John Calvin. And what a lot of these folks say is that, yeah, um, Jesus and the disciples and, uh, the apostles, they had all these great works, but it stopped in the first century. And, and we were just talking a minute ago and I was thinking about it. I said, well, Jesus says right there in that verse, John 10, I think it's 38. He says, if I don't do the works, then, uh, don't believe me. But if I do the works, then, then believe me. And, and so I, you know, if somebody is out there and they don't believe that they can pray for somebody and that God will use that person to heal them and to show them that he is real, then they're really losing one of the tools that they have to share the gospel. But what do you think, Tiger?

I think absolutely. I think there's a whole number of different ways that you can approach this scripture tells us do not just be hearers, but be doers of the word. And if you go into the scripture, even if you just go into the gospels, if you go into Matthew 28 verses 18 through 20, uh, if I read that real quick, it says, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.

So that's one. And if you go ahead over into Mark, and I'm not going to read a bunch, but just two here, Mark chapter 16 verses 17 and 18. And again, this is the great commission, again, just in a different gospel.

It says Jesus and these signs will accompany those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents with their hands. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. That doesn't seem very ambiguous to me.

It doesn't. And he said those signs will accompany those who believe all believers, all believers. So that's something that is something he's given us. We've been given the power and the authority.

We've been given the dunamis and the exousia, if you get into the Greek. Okay, so that means we have the power and the authority to operate in that power. And we've been commissioned in the great commission. We've been given the authority through the great commission of Jesus Christ to go and do these things. And he says, if you are believers in me, these signs should accompany you, right? Yeah.

So it's pretty, pretty clear. And that's pretty much the end of both of those gospels. There's no footnotes afterwards where Jesus said, okay, you can stop now. Or in a hundred years, it's all going to stop the, uh, you know, you were actually telling me the other night, uh, or last night, uh, uh, tiger that you said, well, Mike, when do, or you asked me, when did you get to a point in your life where you, I think it's where you knew God or where you just, you, you never went back. And I, I really kind of thought about it and I said, well, I was in my late twenties and I believe it was in 2008. And, uh, I was finishing up, uh, planning my day the next day for, for work. And I only had one sheet of paper left in my folder to sell insurance the next day. And I don't know what made me do this, but I, it was the Holy spirit. It was the Holy spirit.

It must've, it was the Holy spirit that told me to do this. And I was sitting there and I said, God, show me something. And so I opened up that same notebook, that same folder that only had one sheet of paper. And now there were two sheets of paper in that folder. And so me being the great faith filled person that I, that I was, of course, I said, God, show me one more time. And so I closed the folder again and I opened it up and now there were, instead of being two sheets of paper, there were now three sheets of paper. And, and really, I remember after that time, I never really had any doubts anymore.

Um, but I know Elena, you said there was a story you wanted to share. Oh, um, just that we've had, you know, we have seen the power of God, even before we stood on the truth completely and knew, um, many, many years ago when I was a teenager, I had a whole bunch of female issues where I had a lot of pain. I was seeing the doctor pretty much monthly. And, um, it was initially it was, um, system, my ovaries that would pop up each month.

And I'm 14 years old, I'm going through this. And so as I get older and I become about 17, it now turns into endometriosis, which is a really painful thing. Sometimes it can be moderate, sometimes it can be severe. Of course I had a severe case and it was to the point where the pain would hit me that I couldn't even breathe.

It was so sharp. I literally couldn't breathe. So I was missing school.

Um, depression kicked in, you know, all kinds of stuff was going on. It was a really sick cycle, um, that I was in and I didn't know how to get out of it. And the doctors were telling me, they said, um, fertility is not going to be something you can do. You can have, you're not going to be able to have children with this disease. There's no cure. We can just do certain things.

We can do procedures to try to minimize the pain, these kinds of things. And so I believed them. I'd been told that I was having problems and I probably wouldn't have children most of my teenage years. So I just went on with life that I wouldn't be a mother and I would just travel and have a career, this and that. And so, um, when I gave my, my life to the Lord, I was 22.

Um, I wasn't even asking the Lord. I got on my first fast and I was 23. And after the fast, we had had a celebration that day to end it. I went to bed and I had a dream or I thought it was a dream. And, um, the Lord actually healed me. He came in and he actually healed me. Um, and when I woke up, I felt like I didn't need to take my pills anymore that I was taking to stop, you know, um, things from happening to cause pain. Um, I felt like I shouldn't take them.

And so I just stopped and I never took them again. And I really was healed. So what I thought was a dream, it really was not, he did heal me. And not only that, I mean, I wasn't able to have kids.

He enabled, I've got three and I didn't try for any of them. So when he healed me from the endometriosis, he also made me fertile. He created that ability. He, he changed, he reformed the whole thing. So I have my children because of the Lord and his healing.

I have my children. So it's amazing. And he's done so many stories in our life of healing. And this is before I even knew, you know, how to stand on the word of God, how to pray, how to really do these things effectively. This was before, this was just his goodness that he loved me so much that he didn't want me to be in bondage because I literally couldn't live my life because of the pain. It really stopped me from being able to live. And he took that and changed it and healed me because of his love.

Wow. And you actually said, Elena, there was a story years later where you had an autoimmune disease. Um, yeah, this was a few years ago after I had my children, my third child, my endocrine system, um, kind of nose dive after I had him. And, um, I had a lot of issues that happened afterwards with my endocrine system. Well, anyways, it turned into an autoimmune disease or so doctor said to where I was getting to the point where, um, my body had kind of started to shut down where my stomach, the acid wasn't being produced.

I would eat a few raisins a day and that was it. It would just sit and I wasn't absorbing nutrition. I wasn't, I was having to get IVs for, um, just vitamins just to get them in my system. Cause I wasn't actually absorbing vitamins.

I'm getting these $500 IVs each week to try to just give me essentials. And I just, I knew that that wasn't the way that I was supposed to be lived, that that wasn't God's will for me. Um, so anyways, after, um, I'm going through this, I can't sleep. I get up in the middle of the night, I'm tired cause of my sleep is affected by this.

And in the middle of the night I get, I go in the bathroom, I'm just crying. And the enemy, I heard him clearly. He said, you know, you're going to die. You might as well get your will in order cause you're not going to make it through this. And your kids are going to grow up just like you without their mother.

Cause I lost my mother at 14. And so I'm thinking, you know, I'm taking this in, I'm crying about it. I'm listening to him for a minute here cause I'm tired. And then the Lord comes right behind him and says, you have to fight this up here. And I knew when he set up here, I knew he meant by his word in his way. He said, you have to fight this up here or you're not going to win.

He said, you will get beat. And so I got up off the floor. I decided to stand on the word of God. I decided to stop doing the doctor stuff, the IVs and all these things cause they weren't working. They were just taking my money.

Um, and it was not doing anything for me. And so I, I just started standing on the word of God. I started to learn teachings that were truth and how to pray with effectiveness and how to speak and stand. Just dig your heels into the word of God and speak over your body and that God's way is much better. His supernatural way is much better than natural. Natural sometimes can carry things.

Sure. But there's times where you have to bet. You have to do this by the word of God because it is the excellent way. And it's the only way sometimes in my situation, the word of God was the only way I was going to win this. That is awesome.

As a matter of fact, Elena, I mean that, that is amazing. I was looking at first Corinthians chapter one and I was thinking about this while you were talking. First Corinthians one verse 20 says, where is the wise?

Where's the scribe? Where's the disputer of this age has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world for sense in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe for Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews, a stumbling block into the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

And the weakness of God is stronger than men. And so, you know, if you, if you told that to a doctor, I mean, they, they probably look at you like you were crazy or they would have just said, yo, you're lucky or something like that or whatever, but it's not, that's God. As a matter of fact, the truth is Mike, I know that if I would have listened to the enemy, I would have died. I really do because there was nothing working in my body. There was nothing saying that I would.

And if I would have listened to him, I don't want to think where I'd be right now. I had to choose life. I had to make a decision and stand to choose life. That is awesome. As a matter of fact, you know, Tiger, it's, it's really kind of a miraculous, uh, situation where you actually even became a Christian.

You were in the military. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, you know, I mentioned before, I did not grow up churched. I didn't grow up with, uh, good men or women of God. As examples, I was a best atheist as a teenager.

And really, uh, if, if anything, I thought I was the God of my own life. I was trying to do my own things and get as far away from my family as possible to carve out a life for myself. And I was in the air force. I was 20 years old or something like that. And, um, I remember I was, I wasn't even able to do my original job that I went into the military for.

I was stuck in the tool shop where I had to rent out tools to people and, uh, wasn't happy about it. And there was this one guy who would come in every day and he was so different than everybody else. And he was weird and people made fun of him, but man, he just, he would be like, Hey, love you.

Hope you're having a great day. God bless you. And he would say all these Christian ease things.

Right. And I wasn't used to that whatsoever, but he really, he just took an interest in me and he would really just try to connect with me. And I was like, I don't know, this is one of those Jesus people.

I'm just not really into that. Well, um, I just was polite to him because he was so nice. You couldn't help it, but I really didn't want to have anything to do with the conversations because it made me really uncomfortable. Well, when I got removed from the tool shop and actually was given the opportunity to go work on the aircraft, like I was supposed to, I got assigned to work with him. And so I worked with him and another young guy, um, pretty much every night, 12, 13 hours a night, we were on night shift and he just showed compassion towards me as a person to get to know me, but he preached the gospel and he was always talking about how great Jesus was. And I thought he was nuts and, but he was the nicest person I had ever met. And everybody was like, Oh man, he just did too many drugs before he came into the military.

And he's just not all there. Um, because he was so different. He was so countercultural to everything that we were exposed to. And, um, I became friends with him and I would let him preach to me like just cause we were friends, but I wasn't trying to go and become a Christian or anything. And he asked me, he asked me, he said, when are you going to come to church with me? I said, I'll go one day. And every time he would show up at my dorm room or call me, I would say, today's not that day. And so he showed up one night and he knocked on my door, I opened the door.

He said, get your shoes on, we're going, I'm tired of you telling me it's not the day. And, uh, so I did, I put on my shoes and I remember getting in the car and I said, I'm not giving them any money. So the first thing I told him, he's just like, look at me like, what's your problem, dude? He's like, I don't want your money. And I was like, well, I'm not giving them any money. And, uh, so we went into the church and it was really weird. It was a Pentecostal church and I had never even, I didn't even know what Pentecostal was.

So that was the whole thing. Um, but the people were all like greeting me at the door and I'm literally have my hand over my back pocket because that was the whole perception I had. And, um, he said, well, I normally sit in the front row.

I said, well, not tonight. We're sitting in the back row because when things get weird, I want to leave. And he's laughing. So we sit in the very back row and they, uh, I guess the assistant pastor is up there and he's preaching a sermon.

And if you ever been to a Pentecostal service, it felt like it was a four hour service, right? And he's preaching and going on and on. And I'm like, well, this dude ever shut up. I'm ready to leave. And he did an altar call at the very end and the Holy Spirit grabbed a hold of me in a way that I didn't even know was a thing. And next thing I know, I'm trying to get out of the, the pew and my friends like, what are you doing? Why are you okay?

What's wrong? I said, shut up, get out of my way. And I got into the aisle and next thing I know I'm walking up to the, to the front and I don't even like, there's so many emotions going on inside of me.

I didn't even pay attention to the sermon. And I had all these thoughts like, they're looking at you. You're not wearing the right outfit.

You don't have a suit on, you know? And I had all these thoughts telling me to turn around and go back. And I couldn't, I was just propelled to the front. And I think I was a camera all the way from the back. I must've been moving fast because I think I was the second person at the altar.

And there was a young girl up there a few years younger than me. And she, as she was choosing to accept Jesus, she just broke down and she was weeping. And I was standing just a few feet away from her and they're praying over her and she's receiving the Lord. And I remember saying inside of myself, I heard myself say, that is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

And I need that. And so they turned to me as, as they're praying on this young lady, the pastor or the minister, whatever turns to me next. And he said, son, are you ready?

And I said, yes, I am. And I just, I accepted the Lord right then and there. And I don't necessarily recommend this to everybody, but I literally started repenting of everything that I could think of right in front of the whole church. I just, I had to, I had to, I had to just lay it all down for the Lord. And that was, you know, almost 20 years ago now. Thank God. And you guys are still going out to Walmart and the baseball games and, and, and just about everywhere else and sharing the gospel.

But, you know, I did want to touch on something really quickly. I mean, the, uh, and we were talking about this last night where, uh, there's a verse in the Bible where Jesus actually comes out and he said, here it is, or it's John 1 14, but here it is, it says the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and the only son from the father full of grace and truth. And I think we do a pretty good job in the church today of preaching grace.

And that is awesome. I mean, I, you know, thank God for his grace. Thank God that, you know, he, you know, if we repent from our sins and we turn away from them and we turn to Jesus, that he forgives us our sons. And in matter of fact, the old Testament says he won't even remember them.

He remembers them no more. Um, unfortunately, I think sometimes in the American church, we kind of leave that last part out and truth. And so even in the more conservative churches that were used to see this 10, 20 years ago, you're seeing them not talking about turning away from your sin, not talking about living a holy and a righteous life.

Is that important? Absolutely. There's a couple of scriptures that just jump out right away about sin. And, um, I have my own opinions about it, but let's get right into the word first. If we stay right in first John, we go over to, uh, section three, uh, chapter three, verse eight, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

If you go, uh, back into Hebrews chapter 10, uh, verse 26, it says, for if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. If you get into, I think it's maybe John 15, John 14 or John 15, it talks about the vine. The father is the vine dresser. Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. We must remain in the vine.

We must bear fruit. If, if we are not abiding and if we are separated or if we're not bearing fruit, we are cut off and we are cast into the fire, right? So scripture is very clear. There is a hyper grace message that's going on. And it's not that God's up there waiting for us to mess up so he can smite us.

That's, that's not it. That's not the nature. He has, he has said, listen, this stuff is destructive. This stuff, this sinful nature wants to put you into bondage. It wants to separate you from me. It wants to send you down the w the wrong road.

It wants to send you to a path of destruction for the wages of sin, our death. I have created a way for you to come to me. The father, I have given you my son, the way, the truth, the life. He is the path to the father and he has given us his son so that we can come to him so we can come boldly to the throne of grace. Grace.

I think it's so good that you brought this up. Grace is a gift from God to give us the ability to stop sinning. It's not to be just forgiven of the sin to continue. It's the power to be free. Scripture tells us over and over again that sin is bondage. It's, it makes us a slave. So we are going to be a slave in life to one of two things. Everybody, everybody who's listening to this message, you are a slave to one of two things.

You are either a slave to sin or you are a slave to righteousness. And I'll tell you, one of those actually comes with a whole lot of freedom. It comes with love. It comes with power. It comes with joy.

The other one, not so much. And the truth is nowadays in the culture, they don't want to call sin sin. Nobody wants to even acknowledge sin as even being a real thing. And the truth is when you do that and you take away sin, people's ability to recognize that they're in sin, you are gnawing and voiding or devaluing what Christ did because Christ died on the cross for our sins. And if we're not going to call sin sin and we're going to allow people to do whatever feels good in their heart, we're basically taking away what Jesus did. We're taking, we're taking the value out of it.

Yeah. I mean, as a matter of fact, I'm looking at here at Mark, excuse me, Matthew chapter 13 in verse three. Then he spoke many things to them in parable saying, behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places where they did not have much earth and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, they were scorched. And because they had no root, they withered away and some fell among thorns and the thorns sprang up and choke them.

But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop, some a hundred fold, some 60, some 30. He who has ears led him here. And you know, when I, when I look at that, I'm kind of reminded so many times, I think in, in, in our Christian circles, especially probably in the last 50 years, we've been taught to make a decision for Christ and to say yes to Jesus and to, Hey, go up to the front and get saved. And, and the problem with that is, is that's it for many people. They go on, they say a prayer, that's it. And then they never really, they're never really close to Jesus, not all of them, but some of them, they never live their life close to Jesus. But they say, no, I'm fine because 30 years ago I said a prayer.

Yeah. They're not walking it out. They're not walking out the freedom because the Lord tells us to, uh, walk out our, our salvation with fear and trembling. He says, work that out.

You have to, well, it's a process and it's not one and done. It's not, you said a prayer, it's walking it out. And so one thing that my healing taught me when I was healed from the autoimmune disease and I'm still alive today is that the word of God has to be the absolute. You have to either, you have to choose what you're going to believe. You can't be in the world with the medical system and believing the doctors and believe God at the same time because a lot of times they're contrary to each other. I'm not saying doctors are evil. Don't go see, I'm not saying that, but if you're going to believe in the real healing that the word of God talks about, that is by the word of God. That's what heals you. And so that is your absolute, and there's no side effects to it.

You don't have to take all these medicines to counteract the side effects of this and that. That's the world system. God, the word of God doesn't do that. Yeah.

Yeah. So one other thing, you know, talking about this exact thing that, you know, kind of the sinner's prayer, one and done, you know, fire insurance thing. So we've, one of the places we've been studying in our weekly Bible study is in Luke nine. And I think it says it really well in Luke nine, uh, 23 through, I don't know, 24 or six.

And I'll read it real quick. It says, and he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

That's it. And as a matter of fact, you know, when you're, when you're talking about that, I'm reminded, um, that we're not talking about perfection. I'm not perfect tiger. You're not perfect Delaney.

You're not perfect. But it does say, I believe in the book of Proverbs, it says that a righteous man or woman falls down seven times, but seven times they rise again. So in other words, when we mess up, we get, we ask for forgiveness and we get up and we get up and we get up and then we ask the Lord to help us with the son. I mean, I've, you know, the Bible actually talks about confessing your faults one to another. Um, I know I've had times where I've said, Hey guys, I'm struggling with this. And, uh, you know, you guys have been loving about it and it helped because I was obeying the word of God.

And I know you guys do that as well. And unfortunately we're about out of time, but I, I thank you guys again for coming on, but I'm going to finish up with this. It's Hebrews four verse 12 and it says for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edge sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints in marrow and is a discerner of the hearts and the, of the thoughts and the intense of the heart. And so when I read that, I'm reminded of what you guys were saying that in Elena where that God is more powerful than any medicine. God is more powerful than any doctor.

As a matter of fact, all healing comes from God. Um, and like you were saying, I'm not saying don't go to a doctor or don't, I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is this is who are you going to trust? Are you going to trust the world? Are you going to trust God? And as a matter of fact, or, you know, we were talking about this before, 366 times in the Bible, it says, do not fear, do not fear. And I know Elena, we were talking about this. It's like people, some people are scared to death of COVID.

I mean, and I'm not saying it's not a real thing or anything like that, but once again, I think this is maybe a test for a lot of people. Who are you going to trust? Do you trust that God will heal you? Do you trust that God is the author of everything offer the offer of life, the giver of life and the creator.

And if you do believe that just trust in him and do not worry. And guys, I'm so glad that you were able to come on. Thanks again.

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